England could miss out on the 2014 World Cup because their squad lacks depth, says Danny Mills.
Threat
England had eight shots in the first half and six in the second but overall had fewer than Montenegro, who had 19 in total - 15 of them after the break. England also had much less of the ball in the second half - just 145 passes compared to 250 in the first.
Mills told
Sky Sports News that despite the clear shift in momentum, Hodgson was too slow to make a tactical response.
"It was always going to be a much easier team talk for the Montenegro team than it was for Roy Hodgson," reflected Mills.
"I was really impressed with England in the first half - they came out and played well, they played at a high tempo and put the Montenegrins under pressure realising that their only real threat was their front two and they stopped the supply lines.
"They put defenders and midfielders under pressure and they forced them into errors and had the much better of the first half. For me, they should have been 2-0 up - it was never a dive from Danny Welbeck and it should have been a penalty. That could have changed the game.
"But when they came out in the second half, Dejan Damjanovic came on for Montenegro and played on the right-hand side which stopped Ashley Cole going forward. Mirko Vucinic moved out to the left and stopped Glen Johnson going forward and Stevan Jovetic played as a withdrawn centre forward and that started to cause England some problems.
"For me the technical change didn't come soon enough. I would have dropped Steven Gerrard into a deeper role, a little bit like he played against Brazil, or I would have bought Scott Parker on. Montenegro kept coming and England could not get a foothold in the game. The goal was certainly coming. On balance, Montenegro could have quite easily have won the game."
Pressure
England will resume their World Cup qualifying campaign in September when they host Moldova at Wembley and travel to Ukraine. The following month they entertain Montenegro and Poland - matches that Mills expects to fully test the players' mettle.
"It is going to be very, very difficult to get to Rio. I know that everyone is saying that qualification is now in England's hands and while it is, Ukraine away will be a very, very difficult game and Montenegro at home certainly isn't going to be easy.
"There could be an awful lot of pressure on the final game - Poland at home. If you go into the play-off situation it becomes a little bit of a lottery. Although I presume England will be seeded if they drop into that, to get to Rio you have to look at the whole squad.
"England's midfield can be very, very good when the likes of Wilshere is fit, Gerrard's on form. Rooney, as we know, is a very, very good player - I'm not quite sure that he's as great as he was because he doesn't seem to have the same influence on games that he used to.
"We certainly have problems at centre-back. If you look at a team like Russia, they are well organised and they looked very, very good against Brazil. If England played them right now, I would fancy the Russians to beat us quite convincingly. That's quite a sad indictment on where English football has got to."
