The last days of Southgate?
Picture Credit: Opta Analyst and UEFA.COM
Nobody needs to relive England’s performance against Denmark in Stuttgart.
It was the worst England performance at a tournament since losing to Iceland in 2016. Only this time, they escaped defeat and fortunately Denmark missed out on a well-deserved victory.
What was more interesting was the response from the broadcasters. Their normal supportive nature of Gareth Southgate and the players has been replaced with vehement criticism.
Alan Shearer was close to an aneurism at times in the BBC commentary box.
He followed his disdain for those wearing the shirt that he once wore in a spectacular three-minute rant that singled out several top ‘stars’.
Once finished, you admired Shearer for not dropping the expletives that nearly came, and the bosses at Auntie would have been relieved that they didn’t have to pull the audio feed.
It was England captain Harry Kane who was the subject of much of their anger. “In all honesty, he needs to do better,” Gary Lineker said on the BBC.
“As a striker you have two jobs: score goals, which Kane has been good at all his career, and make space.”
“Against a back three he has to stretch the play, run one way and then come short so you don’t have to come to too far to receive it.”
“He needs to make more space for the midfield players behind him to create chances.”
Other pundits were equally critical of the captain’s desire to drop into midfield. But it was Brentford manager Thomas Frank, who commented on England’s incapability of providing support for their talisman.
“Isn’t that what Kane’s done in the last four or five years? (At Spurs and Bayern Munich) They have runners around him. They (England) needed Foden or Jude going in behind.”
Bukayo Saka and Kyle Walker are also capable of this having ripped Serbia apart several times in the first thirty minutes of the opening game.
So, it isn’t a question of England players not being capable, it is a question of why Southgate’s players do not commit players forward more regularly.
Why has England stunk out a tournament that has thrived on great attacking play? Opting instead, to surrender their midfield and attacking output once scoring the first goal of the game.
It must be Southgate’s tactics.
The same tactics have been consistently exposed during big matches in the last three major tournaments against Croatia (Russia 2018), Italy (Euro 2020) and France (Qatar 2022).
If it is not the tactics, then it could be something more worrying. The fear of playing for England.
Southgate was commended for removing the burden of wearing the Three Lion’s shirt when he took over in 2016.
He granted the media with more access than ever to an England camp. Providing journalists with the platform to write and film positive stories about England stars that had previously felt impossible.
However, a string of poor performances has now left the print and broadcast media impatient, leading to speculation as to whether the manager’s time with England should come to an end after Euro 2024.
The players do not seem to have lost faith in Southgate yet having defended the manager in pre-match interviews.
If they were playing with fear, they also wouldn’t have felt emboldened to fire back against the nation’s media and reminded ex-players of their ‘responsibilities’ when discussing England.
Patronising, perhaps.
However, the players do have the right to defend themselves. But in doing so must improve their performances at a stage of the tournament when failure will set up a tough first knockout match against hosts Germany.
These tests will come eventually for England. But without finding form and momentum against Slovenia, England will be on a flight home sooner rather than later.
