Roy Hodgson Will Be Judged on Whether He Can Add Style to Substance

Games against San Marino are judged in a way no other games can be judged. It is a fixture that cannot be measured in points, but in goals. It is not a question of "if" but of "by how many?"

And so a mere win was never going to be enough for Roy Hodgson’s England side on Thursday night. Three points were a given, so it was therefore imperative that a certain vigor came with the result.

It’s true that you cannot lose against San Marino, but you simultaneously cannot win. Anything below a three-goal win would have been considered below par for England, and yet their 5-0 result comes with the mitigating argument that San Marino are officially the (joint) worst international team on the planet.

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However, England’s display at Wembley wasn’t quite strong enough to be considered emphatic. It took Hodgson’s men 24 minutes to open the scoring against the minnows and coasted their way to half-time, holding a modest 2-0 lead at the break.

As predicted, England played the vast majority of the game on the edge of the San Marino penalty area, with the burden of picking a way through a packed opposition defence falling on Jack Wilshere and Jordan Henderson.

At times, the play was laboured, particularly in the opening 45 minutes. The crowd of 55,000 inside Wembley could have been forgiven for getting their phones out to catch up on the Great British Bake Off from the night before, such was the shoddy standard of entertainment on the pitch.

The urgency of Danny Welbeck and substitute Andros Townsend improved things in the second half, adding three goals to the scoreline, also having an Adam Lallana goal wrongly disallowed for offside.

And then there was the performance of Wayne Rooney to assess. He might be edging closer to becoming England’s all-time top goalscorer, but the striker cut a somewhat disinterested figure. Hardly the attitude of a captain.

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Despite netting a penalty kick, Rooney’s touch was off, with his cutting edge also missing. Not once but twice the Manchester United forward tried to round San Marino keeper Aldo Simoncini, failing both times. The question still stands: Are England better without Rooney?

But Hodgson will take encouragement from the fact that his midfield diamond, after a couple of failed attempts, is finally starting to shine, with Kieran Gibbs making a strong personal case in a rare appearance at left-back. This game wasn't an exception for England, though. There will be more of these fixtures.

While England won’t face a task quite this effortless before the European Championships in 2016, the game was somewhat illustrative of how Hodgson’s side will be judged over the next two years.

With victory over Switzerland in their opening fixture, England have all but sealed their Euro qualification from a group that otherwise comprises Estonia, Lithuania, San Marino and Slovenia. Hodgson could field 10 players in every game from now until 2016 and still make the European Championships in France.

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The former Liverpool and Fulham boss has already targeted 10 wins out of 10 from England’s qualification group, but even that might not be enough to quell the critics eager to denounce the Three Lions as a genuine European footballing power. With substance pretty much assured, in terms of Euro 2016 qualification, now there must be style.

It’s a gauge with which Hodgson has already been measured by. The 67-year-old kept his job by such virtue following England’s group-stage exit from the World Cup, with the development of a new counter-attacking style seen as progress.

With just eight qualifiers to be played before Euro 2016, each game takes on added significance for England—not in the conventional sense of collecting points but from the perspective of forging a new identity and personality for the national team.

Hodgson must embrace England’s natural character as a fast and furious, attacking side. He must use the pace of players like Welbeck, Daniel Sturridge, Theo Walcott and Raheem Sterling, as well as the dynamism of Jordan Henderson and Wilshere, to give his team not just a tactical plan, but also a frame of mind.