La Roja turning guns towards wounded Irish

Spain’s draw with a surprisingly impressive Italy was not a bad result for the defending Euro champions, but their performance threw up more questions than answers ahead of their clash with Ireland on Thursday.

Spanish coach Vicente del Bosque surprised many with his team selection, especially by leaving out all three of the recognised centre-forwards in his squad — Fernando Torres, Fernando Llorente and Alvaro Negredo — and starting Cesc Fábregas up front in a ‘false nine’ role.

Fábregas had played there before for Barcelona, but never for Spain, and the system was not trialled during the pre-tournament warm-ups. The ex-Arsenal player did not have a bad game against Italy, often linking cleverly with colleagues Andrés Iniesta and David Silva, but most of the flicks and one-twos took place in front of a largely untroubled Azzurri defence.