Gareth Southgate and England losing by 'fine margins' again feels careless. Harry Kane was abysmal, Declan Rice was poor and Kyle Walker must be dropped.
Gareth Southgate and England losing by “fine margins” again feels careless. Harry Kane was abysmal, Declan Rice was poor and Kyle Walker must be dropped.1) “Knockout football is fine margins. When you have spells, you have to make them count,” was the response to heartbreak in extra-time of the 2018 World Cup semi-final.
But that is the problem with constantly blaming fine margins: England had yet again allowed the game to drift from them in such a way that when the decisive moment did come, it was increasingly unlikely to fall in their favour. In the quarter of an hour leading up to Cole Palmer’s equaliser they had three shots to four and 56.
The grand plan probably wasn’t Kobbie Mainoo taking the kick-off and playing it straight back to Jordan Pickford, who proceeded to launch it out for a goal kick. The Manchester United midfielder did not have another touch until the ninth minute as Spain settled into a predictable holding pattern of dominating the ball and looking for any gaps to exploit. It was a tone England helped set with their very first action.
This was another actively detrimental performance in which he offered nothing. Already inhibited by his obvious physical problems, Kane was booked in the 25th minute and immediately went from winning none of his duels to barely even engaging in any for fear of a second yellow. England had no out ball and were routinely penned in as everything that went past the halfway line did not stick.
Rice had an especially difficult game, frequently rushing passes when England needed their midfield in particular to exude calm and control. Kobbie Mainoo was equally wasteful but the player six years older and £100m more expensive inevitably shoulders the bulk of the responsibility when it goes wrong, fair or otherwise.
From the kick-offs which opened both halves, England had two touches before the ball went out of play: Mainoo to Pickford in the first for a Spain goal kick; a Guehi header and a Saka block in the second for a Spain goal. The plan as it was would have to be scrapped yet again. Palmer had been on the pitch for three minutes, replacing Mainoo not long after Kane made way for Ollie Watkins. Another goal from a substitute dispelled any lingering sense that Southgate’s coaching deficiencies still lay in that department, even if it does feel as though the majority of his changes throughout this summer have either been a) fixes to his own broken starting line-ups, or b) decisions made out of desperation when losing, in the knowledge this might be his last tournament.
The cross for the winner was sumptuous and the housery in winning a free-kick against Saka in the second minute of stoppage time was as good as anything his more experienced compatriots in that field might have conjured. It masterfully extinguished the last hope England had.
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