The mood swings when it comes to the England team are an amusing affair. After the World Cup, and indeed the lacklustre friendly win over Norway, doom and gloom was the prevailing mood, with Steven Howard in the Sun (subscription required) describing that performance as worse than that in Brazil.
After the excellent display and victory in Switzerland, which kicked off England's European Championship qualifying campaign in fine style, the prevailing attitude seems to be rather more positive, with the Daily Mail's Martin Samuel declaring that "if it wasn’t a statement of the utmost complacency, it would be possible to suggest that with Danny Welbeck’s two goals, England can already start checking out training camps in France."
In this game, things can change just that quickly.
England were indeed excellent in spells against Switzerland, the midfield diamond with Raheem Sterling at the point bringing the best from the resources Hodgson had at his disposal.
Danny Welbeck produced two fine goals and some excellent pace and movement, and even Wayne Rooney, who had previously looked like he was simply being accommodated in the side because he was captain, showed some good touches and took part in some fine interplay.
Hodgson joined in the optimism, although he emphasised that there is still work to do, as quoted by the Guardian:
These are our talented players and this is the way forward. We’ve got to back them. I’m pleased we adopted a bold approach, even if we asked a lot of these players. But if it’s going to work in the future, and this group of players is to become any good, we’ve got to do it with them from the start.
However, a note of caution should be sounded in respect to England's defence. Switzerland are ranked ninth in the world by FIFA, but their attack isn't the most fearsome in the world. On Monday night the Swiss started with Haris Seferovic up front, who has two international goals to his name and managed only two for Real Sociedad last season.
And still England were troubled by them on a few occasions, with individual errors going unpunished by some wasteful finishing on the part of the hosts.
Phil Jones veered from fine tackling to wild errors, in particular giving the ball away to the most dangerous Swiss player on the pitch, Xherdan Shaqiri, in the first half, Leighton Baines displayed some of the positional problems that have been a feature of his career while John Stones looked uncertain at right-back. The latter should receive some clemency because he is only 20 and has produced most of his good form for Everton in the centre, but it all contributed to a shaky defensive display from England.
The good news in that department came from Joe Hart, who produced a couple of fine saves to bail his faltering defence out of trouble, most notably spreading himself superbly to save from Seferovic, who was trying to capitalise on that Jones error. The Manchester City goalkeeper had some uncertain moments at various points last season, but this term he has looked much more assured, and in the post-John Terry, Rio Ferdinand and Ashley Cole era for England, that is heartening for Hodgson.
While there is an understandable optimism around England's attacking options, if the defence does not improve and tighten between now and the European Championships, then Hodgson's side will simply suffer the same old frustrations as before. Luckily, he has time to work on that.
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