Roy Hodgson's men completed 307 passes compared to France's 634 and as a result kept possession for 35.1% of the time – a surefire recipe for disaster
There was a moment, about a quarter of an hour into the second half, when the Ukrainian broadcaster zoomed in on a thick-set man with a large moustache and he was in those first, nodding-dog stages of dozing off.
England were having one of their better spells, at least tempting us to believe that the idea of a winning goal was not completely unreasonable.
When people in the crowd are indulging in a bit of shut-eye it highlights the fact it was not always the most enlivening performance but, equally, Patrice Evra was silly to compare it to Chelsea's backs-to-the-wall operation against Barcelona in their Champions League semi-final. For starters, that would be to presume this France side had the guile and relentless drive of Messi, Xavi, Iniesta et al. In fact, there were only sporadic flashes of real flair in the sapping Donetsk humidity.
Evra's comments were undoubtedly intended as derogatory, to the point where it was almost a surprise he did not go for the classic modern-day put-down and question whether this was what was meant when they talked of "anti-football".
The truth, however, is that England did not encounter too many problems against the team built up as their most difficult opponents in Group D and considering the lack of time Roy Hodgson has had to devise and implement his strategy, nobody should be too surprised they occasionally looked rough round the edges. Chelsea versus Barcelona was a feat of escapology that was rare in the extreme. England are now back in Krakow and nobody is wondering around asking how on earth they survived or laughing at the incredulity of it all.
The problem is an old one and if England have any ambition of making a decent impression on this tournament they are not going to do it by having 35.1% of the ball. Likewise, when it comes to attacking teams, as they must against Sweden and against Ukraine, it is going to be complicated if they repeat what happened against France and three of their four forwards – James Milner, Ashley Young and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain – misplace more than half of their passes. For England, it is the simplest thing, yet also the hardest thing. They really have to start taking better care of the ball.
Uefa's statisticians leave no hiding place sometimes and in the pass-completion percentage Milner's was 48%, Young 47% and Oxlade-Chamberlain 46%. England's most accurate players, in fact, were all defenders, starting with John Terry (78%) then Glen Johnson (77%), Ashley Cole (74%) and Joleon Lescott (73%). After that it was Scott Parker (70%), Danny Welbeck (67%) and Steven Gerrard (66%).
The difference with the France players is stark, beginning with Florent Malouda (87%) then Patrice Evra and Adil Ramil (86%), Yohan Cabaye (85%), Philippe Mexès (84%), Alou Diarra (82%), Karim Benzema (80%), Samir Nasri (79%) Mathieu Debuchy (78%) and Franck Ribéry (70%). The French average, 82%, was higher than any of the English players. Nasri, with 86 passes, had more than twice as many as any player in Hodgson's team.
Even when Hodgson realised Parker and Oxlade-Chamberlain were tiring and removed them, their replacements continued to lose the ball far too cheaply. In 16 minutes Jordan Henderson tried three passes and misplaced two. Ditto Jermaine Defoe over 17 minutes. For France, Marvin Martin came on after 86 minutes and picked out a team-mate seven times from seven attempts. Hatem Ben Arfa had a minute longer and managed to find a team-mate eight times in 10.
Then consider that Young managed a grand total of seven passes during a game that lasted 94 minutes. This really is the most startling statistic of them all considering that Young was supposed to be England's most creative player in the absence of Wayne Rooney. He did at least play the most incisive through ball of the evening, releasing Milner for his first-half chance, but seven passes in 94 minutes looks like a misprint. There was only one to his strike partner, Danny Welbeck, and none to Oxlade-Chamberlain on the left wing.
Oxlade-Chamberlain was only marginally better, with 11 passes during 78 minutes on the pitch – three to Cole, two to Parker and Welbeck and one each to Terry, Lescott, Gerrard and Milner. At 18, it is probably only inevitable there will be moments when he looks a little raw but while his age does bring allowances, it should not make him immune to scrutiny. There are not many times in a game of football when a winger does not find one of the team's forwards, in this case Young, even once. Eleven passes is a third of the number Joe Hart, England's goalkeeper, made.
The problem when one team takes so much better care of the ball is that the side chasing to get it back expend more energy. Spain's tiki-taka style is the prime example, in the way it can wear down their opponents.
"When we did eventually win the ball we were so exhausted we couldn't do anything with it," Germany's Miroslav Klose admitted after the World Cup semi-final defeat by Spain two years ago. England, with 307 passes compared to France's 634, ran over half a mile more in the Donbass Arena. Which should not be dismissed lightly when they have two central midfielders, Gerrard and Parker, who are in their 30s and came into this tournament with fitness issues.
Only one other team, Greece, attempted fewer passes during the opening round of games, and only Italy had less possession, with 34.1%. Greece's mitigation is that they played most of the game against Poland with 10 men, whereas Italy can cite the fact they were facing Spain, the one side in the world who regard giving away possession as a sin. Otherwise, there is a considerable jump to the team with the next lowest figure: Portugal, with 43.5% against Germany.
England, Greece and Italy all have something in common, of course – none of them lost. It is just that England surely don't want to be patronised to the point that the Sun are running a front-page headline saying "Yippee! A draw!" and that will continue to be the case for as long as they are guilty of rushing passes when sometimes it is not a bad thing just to put your foot on the ball and look up. For all the focus on Rooney, there is another player by the end of this tournament whom England might have missed even more. His name: Jack Wilshere. Read More
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