Martin Kelner’s Screen Break: Tyldesley’s mixed messages; Wrightie loves Slaven

It was a frustrating night for England fans in front of the TV, but there were consolations. For a start, we could tweet our gloating Welsh friends to let them know we're more of a rugby nation here. And then there was the fun, for those of us who love a romcom, of the burgeoning relationship between Slaven Bilic and Ian Wright.

I don't know where the directors are going to take this, but I see the two pundits walking off into the sunset together, possibly on a French beach, to the strains of Charles Trenet's La Mer as the credits roll at the end of the tournament.  What a climax that would be for ITV.  

At the moment it's mostly a little light touching of legs and finishing each other's sentences, but that's the way these things start, and there's another England match in Nice next Monday.

Movie fans will know how conducive the south of France can be to romance. To Catch A Thief, for instance, with Grace Kelly and Cary Grant, and That Riviera Touch starring Morecambe and Wise, are but two films set there. The leading characters in both those films ended up in bed together.  

Rhythm blues

For the Slovakia-England match, Slaven and Wrightie sat in the middle of a four, flanked by Lee Dixon and Peter Crouch who barely got a look in – apart from Crouchie's whinge about Roy changing the full-backs and disrupting England's rhythm, which prompted your correspondent to shout "What rhythm?" at the TV (I've never really accepted television as a one-way thing).  

I've never played football at the highest level – or even at the lowest level to be brutally honest – but England seem to me to have played pretty similarly in all three group games, battering gamely at a packed defence, playing some pleasing football, but without having anyone capable of the piece of magic that might break the deadlock.

Slaven said as much, and sagely suggested we might have more chance when we meet a higher class of opposition who take the game to us and allow opportunities for counter-attack. Wrightie demurred slightly, but I took that as no more than a lovers' tiff. That said, there could be trouble down the line if he keeps referring to Glenn Hoddle as "the gaffer".

The former England international is fond of picking up on Hoddle's comments in the commentary box and beginning his sentences, "Like the gaffer says..." despite the fact that much of the gaffer's analysis consists of telling us what we've just seen.  

Despite that, one piece of wisdom issuing from the game – which I just about caught over the unholy racket the England fans in the stadium were making – echoed something I have been saying to anyone who will listen (my wife, basically, who has no choice): that Hodgson should have taken Andy Carroll with him to give him a different option.

Had he been able to throw the West Ham striker into the fray in those desperate final moments, we might have been able to shake up the previously immovable Martin Skrtel for once.

Dictionary corner

Skrtel wasn't the only source of frustration, though. That constant drone issuing from the England fans was a distraction. It robbed one of involvement in the match, almost like the dreaded Mexican wave.  

"England are being serenaded, but are they being serenaded to victory?" asked Clive Tyldesley. Sometimes, though, I think he just says things for the sake of saying things. It didn't sound like a serenade to me.  

Clive also went through the possibilities of England's next round opponents: "Finish third, and it could be Spain or Germany; finish fourth, it could be hell or high water." I have subjected that sentence to forensic analysis and I can reveal it means precisely nothing. Come hell or high water, as I understand it, means you will overcome any obstacle to achieve something.

As I'm hoping Wrightie might, finding his way over ITV's Eiffel table to get to Slaven.

More features every day on FFT.com • More England