Roy Hodgson - My Fake Diary

Thursday, 13 September 2012

I was very pleased with many of the aspects of the play against the Ukraine.

I left Wembley a lot more confident that we have a group of players who will take this England team to Rio.

England were without a number of regulars, including forwards Wayne Rooney, Andy Carroll, Ashley Young and Theo Walcott and the defensive duo of John Terry and Ashley Cole.

I was forced to call up midfield trio Raheem Sterling, Adam Lallana and Jake Livermore - none of whom have represented their country at senior level before - and selected inexperienced duo Tom Cleverley and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain to face Ukraine.

At the end of the day, we have had two youngsters starting the game. They have come off and we have replaced them with three other youngsters.

I'll concede that the first 10, maybe even the first 15 minutes, we weren't at our best.

We started slowly, but the next 75 minutes, we dominated the game totally.

I think...