Watching England drift into series of fruitless half hearted attempts to make something, anything happen in the final 5 minutes of a game has become par for the course. It was probably as nearly dispiriting as playing for Southgate itself. Beyond, ‘why aren’t you playing Jack Grealish?’, my burning question was, ‘why isn’t anyone passing to Harry Kane?
Maybe as a Tottenham fan I was being oversensitive to the amount of time our captain and theirs was getting on the ball. Until I checked the data. Kane was on the pitch for 96 minutes and received the ball on just 13 occasions. In fact, trawling back through what have now been 10 UEFA Nations League games and 13 passes to Harry is comparatively high! Playing for Spurs, Kane can receive the ball up to 20 times or more in any one game.
All of which heavily suggests that Gareth Southgate needs to sit down with his coaches and work out how to get the ball through to his captain, the prolific goalscorer. Revolutionary stuff, I know, but I’m sure a man of Gareth Southgate’s intellectual prowess could solve this riddle.
Gary should be managing a pub team.. Whoevers in charge at the English FA need to sort themselves out… Sven, Capello, mclaren, big sam, hodgson, southgate.. We have alot of good talent coming through right now. I fear under Gary this generation could be wasted similar to the last.
After reading his managerial pedigree I am shocked at what is going on. Maybe this is just his experimental period and like the Italians of old England will be on fire for the next WC/Europeans.
Absolutely agree about the line up for a home game,far too negative.The other worry is Southgate playing men out of their position.
In my view his system doen’t really suit the players chosen.A case in point being TAA.He is devastating playing for Liverpool because tha system suits him.But for England he looks lost.
As pointed out by 1882 below,Kane is generally starved of service,because we seriously lack any creativity.Why Grealish stayed on the bench is a complete mystery.He was the one player in the squad who could have got us forward with purpose.
Too many of those players are out of form and should never have been selected.Pickford,Maguire and Rashford are well out of form and are there on reputation only,and when Southgate was appointed he specifically stated that those days are over and form would dictate his decisions
I always think that Southgate carries an air of perpetual bewilderment about him. He is like a young schoolmaster on his first day who doesn’t understand why the pupils are misbehaving and won’t obey him. When I saw that as the home side he was playing Phillips and Rice in midfield, my heart sank as I knew there would be little or no service for the front men. I never understand why a manager drops a player after he has played very well in his last game like Grealish. I don’t think we are suited to three at the back and Maguire was clearly out of form. It is debatable if Walker can play in that system as well. It was a thoroughly depressing experience which was engendered by Southgate’s negative team selection at home.
the amount of England “fans” i speak to that say kane is useless…I just ask how well they felt Shearer or Linekar would have got on if the only time they saw the ball was on the half way line. I wonder how many of those 13 passes were in dangerous places.