Cahill the problem in England's defence

England 2 – 1 Turkey
 
Stadium: City of Manchester
Referees: Deniz Aytekin, Guido Kleve, Mike Pickel (Almanya)
England: Hart, Walker, Cahill, Stones, Rose, Dier, Wilshere (min. 66 Henderson), Dele Alli, Sterling (min. 73 Drinkwater), Kane, Vardy
Turkey: Volkan Babacan, Gökhan Gönül, Hakan Kadir Balta, Mehmet Topal, Caner Erkin (min. 69 İsmail Köybaşı), Oğuzhan Özyakup (min. 69 Mahmut Tekdemir), Selçuk İnan, Ozan Tufan (min. 85 Mevlüt Erdinç), Volkan Şen, Hakan Çalhanoğlu (min. 78 Olcay Şahan), Cenk Tosun
Goals: min. 3 Kane, min. 83 Vardy (England), min. 14 Hakan Çalhanoğlu (Türkey)
Yellow Cards: min. 32 Oğuzhan Özyakup, min. 71 Mehmet Topal (Turkey), min. 56 Wilshere (England)

Looking at the England squad it didn't take a genius to work out we would struggle in defence with John Stones being rated far above his actual ability at the moment and gary Cahill simply not international class.

The defence were reacting to situations rather than anticipate them. Turkey's goal cane as the result of an excellent through ball behind Kane, just the sort of delivery that gets all fullbacls into trouble and John Stones didn't know what to do.

in the end he put himself in nomans land marking nobody nor covering any area. gary Cahill did the same, simply running towards goal so the only two players could be easily picked out for a tap-in. Players playing together for the first time are not going to gel straight away but a player like Cahill just inspires nervousness in others.

he is a Michael Dawson type defender, by that I mean he seems to want to dive into challenges or dive around to make last minute blocks. managers want defenders on their feet, they can't affect the game on the floor, Cahill simply wants to be on the floor all the time.

He doesn't read a game very well as we saw throughout, he was reacting instead of anticipating. Against Tottenham he was simply going through the back of Harry Kane with Mark Clattenburg's approval and we saw how dodgy Clattenburg was in the Cup Final where he favoured Manchester United in that first half and perhaps therefore influenced the result.

At the European Championships Cahill won't be able to come through the back of players, he'll immediately be in the book. Strikers will be rubbing their hands at facing him.

After the game Gary Lineker agreed with my pre-game articles and was too concerned with our defence.

The first 5 minutes shows what we could see from this England team. Exciting going forward, nervous at the back.

Stan Collymore thought the same, as did former defender Jason Cindy, Rodney Marsh

Worry about communication between any 2  CD’s. Too nice.@talkSPORT ON AIR LIVE

The defence is gonna be our weak point and that was exposed badly by........Turkey!
Rose Hart!?!??!

>Defence is huge worry ...

Wise after the event chaps, it was obvious before the game. Eric Dier needs better centre-backs behind him because a centre-back who can't read the game is a liability at this level, unfortunately he won't get it, jagielka and Smalling are the only options.

When you have a weak centre-back it puts extra pressure on the full-back and it also affects the defensive midfielder as well as the other centre-back, which in turn affects the other full-back. All the defenders have to have total confidence in each other and you can't have that playing with one who can't read the game well enough.