At the start of this adventure few thought England would be tripping up over full-backs, except in the literal sense.
Gareth Southgate selected five of them, three right-backs and two-left backs, in his squad, four of whom have been deployed in the opening two games and barely managed a cross between them.
The failure of Southgate’s full-backs to function in an attacking sense is a big part of the problem with Harry Kane, who endured a starvation diet against Croatia and Scotland.
The England captain’s stomach must have been rumbling big time watching Germany re-invent the wheel a cross at a time, punching holes through Portugal with a set-up that invited the wing-backs to hare forward in a 3-4-2-1 formation.
With Joshua Kimmich and Robin Gosens piling over the halfway line as if fleeing a pack of hounds, Germany flooded the box with runners. The goals were shared between German attackers and stretched Portugal defenders, who could not but divert some of the balls raining into the area past their own keeper.
And at the centre of the Teutonic hub were two thirty-something midfielders without a yard of pace between them, Toni Kroos and Ilkay Gundogan, working in tandem to create a veritable clearing house of well-timed passes to supply the machine. No wonder Kai Havertz and Serge Gnabry were smiling.
Meanwhile England, having assembled one of the youngest, most vibrant squads in the competition, have failed to release the team’s attacking potential, opting instead for a safety-first platform that is utterly out of step with the mood of the nation.
It is as well, perhaps, that England, newly assembled at Spurs’ training complex in Enfield from St George’s Park, have been largely protected from the gathering swell of disappointment.
Kieran Trippier told of an untroubled atmosphere in their parallel universe with players laughing and joking as they prepared for Tuesday’s final group game against the Czech Republic.
“We as players know we can do much better. We tried to go for the win,” Trippier said of the Scotland impasse. “In the end the draw was fair and it was a good point for us. Two clean sheets, points on the board and another big game Tuesday. We are in a good position. Everybody is calm and feeling good.”
It is clear the concerns of fans over the shape of the team, the laboured patterns, the form of individuals and the lack of clear chances never mind goals, is not shared by the players, who view the experience through a completely different lens. For them the issues are technical not emotional, a question of emphasis, not first principles.
“Tuesday will be a different game. We just have to keep working, listen to what the manager has to say and take that into the game to get three points. Everybody is relaxed and fully focused. We want to win every game, to finish first in the group. We had a talk after the Scotland game, what we can do better, attacking wise and defensively. It’s about putting it right on the training field and that started today.”
Trippier was in the team that lost to the Czech Republic in Prague in 2019. It was arguably England’s worst display under Southgate, a dense throwback to the aimless, guileless, plodding product we thought we had left behind. In difficult circumstances Southgate turned it around a few days later in Sofia, where England stuck six past Bulgaria despite the racist incursions of the crowd.
It was a night when the team and the manager, invigorated by a sharp sense of purpose, showed the best of themselves. It seems we are waiting for that trigger point again, albeit in a different context, to shake off the bizarre attachment to caution and connect to the carnival beginning to rage elsewhere.
“We have so much attacking quality in this team,” Trippier said. “We have fantastic wingers who want to attack the opposition. We do have the freedom to go forward. It’s about game management and picking your moment when to go forward. At this level if you are out of position it only takes a second for the opposition to score. We have great attacking full-backs here and you will see them attacking a lot more for sure.”
Sentiment noted. Now go and practice your crosses.
More from i on Euro 2020
- The football nomad who became a hero for his role in saving Eriksen’s life
- How Ronaldo’s Coca-Cola stunt could change the face of football sponsorship
- In praise of Emma Hayes, the best pundit at Euro 2020 so far
- Eriksen collapse has thrown a spotlight on football’s relentless thirst for more
- How to watch every Euro 2020 match on TV and online in the UK
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3cTlI5e
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