I can’t remember the last England match I watched...picked a great one here to start watching them again.
They look like they’ve never played together before, so disjointed, and so many loose passes. I’ve been paying less attention this half but in the first half we were just giving the ball away constantly.
This'll get called an overreaction, because of previous results in the group, and the goodwill he's attained since the World Cup. But questions need to be asked of Southgate now.
That result was just so... unnecessary. I'm not saying we should have won, but to have lost having played so poorly, and having played such a poor team, when such obviously better options sit unused on the bench, makes it seem that GS is just... stubborn? As if he doesn't pay attention to other football results, and a player's club form doesn't matter at all. He appears to pick based on a player's first impressions on him, regardless of how long ago these impressions are made.
There's no excuse, with the players we have available to us - even accounting for injuries - to play the starting eleven we had tonight. Alexander-Arnold is one of the best RBs in the world right now and he's sat on the bench. Chilwell, easily on form, arguably on ability, is miles ahead of Danny Rose. Keane and Rice are clearly not cut out for this level - the former awkwardly so, the latter apparently included only at the expense of the Irish, and awkwardly shoehorned in so that the obvious choice for his position is shunted into an unnatural position - I mean, Liverpool won the CL, lost only one game last year in the league, and now top it with Henderson playing sitting midfield in a 4-3-3 and here is England, playing 4-3-3, with him aimlessly on the side.
Why was Rashford, sub-par at best this season, sent on before Abraham, one of Europe's top scorers? Actual WTF? And why did Sancho make way for him, just to get him on the pitch, to play him... out of position? Eh?
Unacceptable.
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I thought all our players were poor really, but Keane, Rice, Henderson, and Rose seemed particularly bad. I think it's fair to ask questions on some of Southgate's decisions, particularly his subs which have always been baffling. No idea why Rashford was brought on when he's in poor form, and I don't remember him actually doing anything in the time he was on the pitch. Bringing Abraham on with 2 minutes to go isn't really going to do anything - he should've been on much earlier. Barkley had a brief spell of looking good, but otherwise was average. I don't know why we always leave our subs so late, especially on an occasion like tonight when it's been clear all evening that things aren't working and need to change.