Second-half subs win it for England

England defeated Wales 2-1 last night to top Group B. Here are five things we learnt from the game:

WHY DID ENGLAND MAKE SO LITTLE PROGRESS IN THE FIRST HALF?

England’s lack of intensity in the first half was crippling. Wales allowed them plenty of the ball and England used that 60 per cent of possession woefully. They completed 219 passes in the first 45 minutes to the 81 by Wales, and yet so few of them were inside the Wales box.

It was obvious that on the few occasions English players were in the Wales area, the Welsh defence took the decision to stand off rather than risk conceding a penalty. Yet for all the possession, it was hard to think of more than one occasion an England player got in position to shoot.

HOW DID GARETH BALE SCORE FROM SO FAR OUT?

It was an absurd distance to strike from, and it was only because this was Bale and because Wales were not getting close to the England goal that it was even attempted.

He brought the ball up and over the wall very quickly, and it took a slight flick off Dele Alli, but there is no way that an international goalkeeper of Joe Hart’s standard should not have been able to get across in time and push the ball away. As ever, the problem was that the wall disguised the exact angle of Bale’s shot — even so, Hart should have had stronger hands to push it away.

HOW DID WALES WIN THE FIRST-HALF BATTLE IN MIDFIELD?

They picked their fights. Aaron Ramsey covered a lot of ground, shutting down the space around Wayne Rooney and Alli, and he was helped by Joe Allen and Joe Ledley, who worked hard to plug the holes.

They were never going to dominate England, but they started with a plan to frustrate and contain them, and then steal what they could on the counter-attack. In the end, the opportunity was the Bale free-kick won for Wales by Hal Robson-Kanu, another hard worker who set out with the intention to frustrate.

WHAT CHANGED FOR ENGLAND IN THE SECOND HALF?

It was a decisive change from Roy Hodgson to bring on Jamie Vardy and Daniel Sturridge for Harry Kane and Sterling. The tempo picked up notably, and Kyle Walker and Danny Rose pushed much further up the pitch.

They stopped the long periods of sterile possession and started asking more serious questions of a Wales defence that had obvious weaknesses. One of the best moves came just before the Jamie Vardy goal when England moved the ball with single touches instead of the usual touch-pause-pass approach. They kept moving the ball through Wales, and Sturridge’s finish was sublime.

WHO WAS MAN OF THE MATCH?

Ramsey covered so much ground in the Wales midfield, carried the ball away from trouble, drew fouls and made a nuisance of himself.

Naturally he is a creative player, but he was asked to do a specific job by Chris Coleman. He worked incredibly hard, but in the end the quality of the England players outweighed his effort. THE DAILY TELEGRAPH