Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain's efforts over the past week won praise from England coach Roy Hodgson

Published: 11 September, 2012
by PAUL COWLING at Wembley

World Cup Qualifying, Group H
ENGLAND 1, UKRAINE 1

ENGLAND followed up their 5-0 Friday night stroll in Moldova by salvaging a point courtesy of a late penalty from Frank Lampard.

It was no more than England deserved after they gnawed away at an accomplished Ukraine side who took the lead on 39 minutes with a wonder strike from Ievgenii Konoplianka.

Poland and Montenegro, who both won tonight, join England at the top of Group H, with the pressure already on to secure the one guaranteed berth for Brazil 2014.

For England coach Roy Hodgson, there was relief that his injury-hit side had managed to grab a point which could prove crucial.

"I don't think we did too badly," he said. "We kept to our task, and I was pleased with the way we probed. In the end we fully deserved our equaliser."

That may have been so, but as Hodgson admitted, England "started poorly". It was the visitors who settled the quickest. Ukraine almost went ahead on three minutes, when Oleg Gusiev's deflected cross beat Joe Hart.

A minute later there was panic in the home side's penalty area, and it was left to Steven Gerrard to block a goalbound shot from Anatoily Tymoshchuk.

At the other end, Tottenham's Jermain Defoe had a fine effort disallowed for an innocuous challenge on Andriy Iarmolenko after 11 minutes. Defoe busied himself, but found further goal chances difficult to come by.

But England should still have gone in leading at half-time. The impressive James Milner had a goalbound shot charged down by Yevgen Selin, while Tom Cleverley had an effort saved by Piatov on 34 minutes, and then grazed the crossbar.

Hodgson said he was pleased with Cleverley's contribution, and that of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain. The Arsenal youngster quickly faded after a promising start, and was replaced by Daniel Sturridge.

"It was always going to be tough for Alex (after Moldova), but he acquitted himself well," Hodgson said.

The visitors were organised in defence, broke out quickly when they could, but slowed the game when they needed to – the fussy Turkish referee helped their cause with five England bookings, much to the frustration of most of the 68,000 crowd.

With an hour gone, Hodgson brought on Danny Welbeck, who soon responded by hitting the post. It looked as if it was going to be one of those nights for England, but with three minutes to go, Wellbeck teed himself up for a shot which was handled by Khacherdi, and England were awarded a penalty. Up stepped Lampard to level the scores.

England probed for a winner, but struggled to find gaps in the Ukraine defence.

In injury time, Steven Gerrard was sent off for a second yellow card. Hodgson bemoaned a decision that rules the Liverpool man out of England's next group game at home to San Marino next month.

"It wasn't that sort of game," he said. "Gerrard was extremely unlucky to have been sent off."

After the Moldova game, this was never going to be easy for England, and so it proved. Ukraine will have a major say in who goes to Brazil, but for England this looks as if it could still be a point gained, rather than three lost.

England: Hart, Johnson, Jagielka, Lescott, Baines (Bertrand 73) , Lampard, Gerrard, Milner, Cleverley (Welbeck, 61), Oxlade-Chamberlain (Sturridge 69), Defoe. Subs not used: Ruddy, Walker, Cahill, Carrick, Livermore, Lallana, Sterling, Butland.

Ukraine: Pyatov, Gusev, Khacheridi, Rakitskiy, Selin (Shevchuk 74), Tymoschuk (Nazarenko 89), Rotan, Yarmolenko, Garmash, Konoplianka, Zozulya (Devich 88). Subs not used: Koval, Bezus, Mandzyuk, Stepanenko, Butko, Dykan.

Referee: Cuneyt Cakir (Turkey)

Attendance: 68.102

ENGLAND COMMENT by Paul Cowling

LAST night’s match programme shouted out “Let the Games Begin”; that exciting phrase that leapt from the newstands and from our national newspapers on that nervous but exciting morning of Friday, July 27.

Was it arrogance from the FA to suggest that England v Ukraine was what we were really interested in after the small matter of the Olympic Games? Or were they simply trying to keep the dream alive, when we know it is all over?

Even Wembley was bedecked in that soothing purple colour scheme, as the Games came to our famous stadium.  

Now it was business as usual, and as usual, England spluttered in front of their fans.

Trust England to provide the anti-climax. The upper tier of the south side was empty, and there were vast gaps in the prawn-sandwich seats. There were barely enough of the “polyester hordes” to make up the St George’s flag placard while the national anthem was being played.

A handful of GB medallists clutching their precious metal took to the pitch at half-time, and received generous applause, but it was nowhere near the sound of thunder that echoed around each Olympic park venue. 

I would hope, but doubt that one thing can come from the feelgood London 2012. 

Team GB’s men footballers were rightly praised for their restraint on the pitch .

Continued talk of legacy (without doing anything about it) sounds cheap, but wouldn’t it just be brilliant if our pampered English Premier League players took the referee’'s decision as final.

That is surely too much to ask. 

So, as we try and work out why it is England will probably never win the World Cup again, maybe a more apt headline for the Ukraine match programme should have been: “Let the blame begin.” 

Our national team and the FA could learn a lot from our wonderful Olympic and Paralympic stars.