England 0-1 Germany : World Cup Gets Further Away

After being humbled by Chile on Friday night, England were brought further down to earth as they suffered a defeat against an experimental German side.

Germany started the match without Neuer, Ozil and Lahm as well as Khedira who is currently unavailable with a long-term injury. England returned to near full strength with Gerrard, Sturridge, Walker, Jagielka, Townsend and Joe Hart returning to the starting line-up.

Unfortunately for England, despite maintaining possession for periods of the game, they managed to create very little, registering no shots on target, the closest England came to a break-through was when Andros Townsend's shot cannoned off the crossbar.

A Per Mertesacker header in the 39th minute was the only goal of the game, in a contest that failed to live up to the hype, and was suited to a pre-World-Cup friendly.

England will try to take some positives from the match, one of which was the performance of Joe Hart. Dropped by his club team and facing a crisis of confidence from the fan-base, Hart reminded us why he is England's No1 with a comfortable and confident performance, saving from Mertesacker before the big German defender headed his team into the team. He also pulled off several impressive saves off Mario Gotze and Marco Reus.

One area of concern has to be the final third, where England struggled to find the final ball and where play broke down. It's now back to back games where England have failed to score and in both games, they never really looked like they would. A simple rule of thumb for any team is if you don't score, you can't win. Right now England look severely lacking in terms of creativity and that finishing edge. Hodgson will need to find a solution to this problem before June.