Former Arsenal striker Ian Wright has criticised the approach by England manager Roy Hodgson in the opening group game at the Euro 2012. England were facing France in the opening group game knowing that they needed to avoid defeat at all cost in order to stay in the hunt for the quarter-final spot.

England opened the scoring in the first half through Manchester City defender Joleon Lescott after a fantastic free kick from Liverpool midfielder Steven Gerrard. After the advantage, England defended with numbers in the back, which has been reminiscent of the way Chelsea played in the Champions League.

After the 1-1 draw with the French, there has been a lot of criticism for the manager Roy Hodgson, who has decided to use negative tactics in his opening competitive fixture as the manager of the England national team. Ian Wright has said that the way England played against France was extremely unacceptable, but has said that the result was extremely delightful because it puts them with great opportunity to make it into the quarter-final stage. England are not expected to win the tournament, but such defending can pave the way to an unlikely success according to Wright.

“I’d have to say we were okay but not great. I thought we could nick it 2-1 beforehand – but only if we had a different approach to the defensive way we played. Yes, we were hard to beat and that will continue to be the case with England under Roy. Yes, we knew France would have a lot of the ball, and we’d be frustrated at times. But the fact I could only see us scoring from a set piece pretty much sums up what we got,” said Ian Wright after the 1-1 draw with France. The other group match finished as a win for Ukraine.