Euro 2012: Hodgson hopes Carroll can be ace in pack

England reach a crossroads tonight (Friday) on one of the world's oldest trading routes. The road they have chosen to go down involves sweeping in crosses from the wide acres, seeking to shred a Swedish defence which has conceded nine of its last 11 goals to airborne assaults.

England, a slight rush of adrenalin now slipping into their veins, want to play a game of heads and tails up. Andy Carroll could prove the ace in Roy Hodgson's partly-reshuffled pack. Victory would guide Hodgson's side closer to the quarter-finals of Euro 2012, confirming they have chosen the right road. Draw or defeat would leave England stuck at the perennial crossroads since 1966, still nervous about the correct direction ahead.

For Hodgson, preparing the tactics against a nation he knows so well, the Sweden game also represents a crossroads. The former Malmo manager may assay a far more attacking style than initially suspected by those who watched his steady but unspectacular Fulham and West Bromwich Albion sides.

After the conservative approach in facing France, Hodgson is considering being bold.

In a private training session at the Olympic Stadium here last night, following the traditional eviction of the television cameras after 15 minutes, James Milner and the left-sided Ashley Young delivered a stream of crosses towards Carroll and Danny Welbeck. The presence of Carroll in the attack, effectively replacing Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, signalled Hodgson's intent. Crosses count. England were taking the high road. They were going for the Swedish jugular.

Exploiting an obvious opposition flaw makes sound sense, following the successful example of Andrei Shevchenko in Ukraine's 2-1 opening Group D win. Yet there was something almost flippant about the way Steven Gerrard responded when talk turned to Carroll: "Shall I ask the manager? Will Andy Carroll play?". Hodgson replied that he would consider it after consulting with Gerrard. It was all very jovial, and both Gerrard and Hodgson are not prone to mind games, but if a similar scenario involved a more Machiavellian footballing creature like Jose Mourinho, the alarm bells would have rung.

Even if England do target Sweden in the cross-wire, concerns persist.

Young rarely crosses on the run with his left foot, preferring to check back on to his right, complicating the timing for strikers like Welbeck and Carroll. Milner is not the most accomplished crosser of the ball, either. If Hodgson encourages his full-backs to overlap, then Glen Johnson and Ashley Cole could deliver some telling balls. Do not be surprised to see Gerrard lurking 25 yards out, shouting "set" as Carroll looks to nod the ball back and then unleashing one of his specials.

Sweden are clearly sensitive to the five-in-three, nine-in-11 statistics.

The 6ft 4in Jonas Olsson is expected to step back into the heart of the defence. He is a player Hodgson knows well from the Hawthorns partnering Olof Mellberg.

Hodgson certainly acknowledged the work England had done on crossing in training. "It is not necessarily a weakness to find crosses hard to deal with if the crosses are of a very good quality,'' he said. "Certainly the first goal that the Ukraine scored was a very good quality cross, a very good run from Andrei Shevchenko and a quality finish.

"In all the clubs I have worked at I have always done a lot of work on players getting in crossing situations and movement for crosses. Let's hope the message we are trying to put will help us in that area because there is no doubt a team like Sweden who are very compact centrally. If we are going to get behind them then getting down the wings will be an important facet of our play."

Earlier in the week, Hodgson bridled slightly at the suggestion that he would go "horses for courses" against certain opponents. He is.

England were far more defensive against France in the opening 1-1 draw but now is the time for letting off the handbrake.

He is not one to resent publicly a barb against his team but Hodgson will surely have heard the slightly snide remark from France's coach, Laurent Blanc, last night that his team must not "repeat the first 30 minutes against England. If we had played against a really good side it would have been over".

Hodgson is big on respect in word and deed. "I would be surprised if teams weren't taking England seriously,'' he said.

"With the reputation of football in England, not least of all the quality of the Premier League and the famous names in there, I don't think we are ever going to be taken lightly. In fact, we run the risk of a country like Sweden, who spend a lot of their time watching the Premier League.

They get extra motivation to beat England because they like to show that these highly paid superstars are no better than our own players.

"It makes them exceptionally dangerous because they have got the organisation, the discipline, the work ethic, and then they have got players [such as Zlatan Ibrahimovic] whose talent would probably get him into a lot of other teams in this tournament."

The atmosphere will be against the English, who have only 5,000 fans and their liberated brass band against 18,000 Swedes. Yet England have Hodgson, who has yet to lose in four attempts against Sweden as an international manager, having two wins and a draw while managing Switzerland and a draw with Finland.

Five England managers have failed to defeat Sweden - Bobby Robson, Graham Taylor, Glenn Hoddle, Kevin Keegan and Sven-Goran Eriksson. Hodgson managed it with the Swiss in qualifying for Euro 96. He plots another at this charismatic crossroads in Ukraine tonight.