Roy Hodgson is being ripped apart at the moment for his wrong tactics in the last friendly game that England played versus Italy and every bit of that criticism is valid.

But, Hodgson must be having his own point behind what he did.

He would undoubtedly admit that his tactics hurt England’s chances, but, you will have to give Hodgson the benefit of the doubt considering that it’s just a friendly game and the England boss did not have his best set of players available to him.

There was no Shaw, no Welbeck and no Sterling. Had the three of them been available, they would surely be in the starting XI of the Three Lions and in that case, the formation which Hodgson deployed there at the Juventus Stadium, it would have been very different.

But, because of the fact that the key players were not there, Hodgson might have tried to take a bit of a chance with the formation and see how different players respond when asked to play in positions which are not quite familiar to them and he was well within his rights to do so.

He is in charge of the team and if he wants to experiment a little bit and test the versatility of his players especially in a game which does not carry that much importance, that’s fair enough.

It all went pear-shaped, but, it happens in Football and the end result was not that bad for England. They could have won yes, but, from the position they were in at half time, they would have taken that 1-1 draw which they eventually got.

Most of the things that Hodgson has done after the World Cup have been good. So, he should be allowed to get away with a bad night if it indeed was that bad.