for more England dullardry.
England scraped a nil nil draw against Denmark in their second UEFA Nations League outing in another unsurprisingly, if you’ve been paying attention, dull performance.
Come dear Belgium and put Clueless Gareth out of our misery, again.
England sit second in the group with Belgium top, after they won their second game of the week with a 5-1 thumping of the team, Iceland, England struggle to scrape by. The two games against the team that helped in beating England in the last World Cup opened up an easier route to the semi-final – which Southgate is still living off – should be real eye openers.
In his eternal, tactical masterclass, wisdom Southgate changed formation, reverting to a back three but with three up front it meant a 3-4-3 line-up, with two… yes two… holding midfielders. Meaning there was absolutely no creativity in the, outmanned, middle of the park.
If you play wing-backs, they are your width. So Alexander-Arnold on the right, one of the best wide players in the Premier League, Sancho was nullified by his own manager. He looked lost, throughout the hour he was on the park.
Play three at the back, as said your wing-backs give the width, so three in the middle so you’re not overrun, just one holding and two strikers. 3-5-2.
But then he was one creative player, having sent Foden and his mate Greenwood off home after they hooked up with a pair of Icelandic sorts at the team hotel, in breach of the Covid bubble stuff.
Of course if Southgate hadn’t brought party boy Kyle Walker into the squad, then this pair might not have thought, “you know what, Kyle partied with those hookers during lockdown, and dopey played him so we’re alright.”
Foden would probably have been far better against the more open Denmark than he was against Iceland.
Of course Gareth saw this not working for an hour before he made a change and that change didn’t remove one of the holding midfielders. No that duet wasn’t broken up until after a quarter of an hour before the end. When Grealish finally made it onto a pitch in a senior England shirt. You can just imagine how reluctant Southgate was to do that.
Harry almost scored near the end, his attempt after rounding Schmeichel was cleared off the line. Apart from that England produced very little. Oh, wow Sterling got a 6/10 in the paper because he made Schmeichel a shot. yeah, a shot going wide that caused the Danish keeper no trouble. Other than that he was putting the ball just that far out of reach for Kane to kill any chance.
All Southgate’s mates in the media will bleat about not having Maguire, who is regularly worse than Dier at tackling and passing, or Henderson who offers next to nothing on the pitch. Get all their excuses in as Southgate remains as lucky as Robson in the job.