CAN ENGLAND PUSH ON NOW THE WORLD CUP BANDWAGONERS HAVE DISAPPEARED?

It wasn’t as busy in the pub when I went out to watch England last weekend (Saturday 8th  September) as they opened their campaign in the inaugural Nations League. After their run in the World Cup brought about millions of fans to support their national side, they all seemed to have disappeared for the clash with the Spaniards. Standard bandwagoners who just jump on when there may be glory – who show no sign of support when it becomes all so mundane. Shame that really – see you at the next tournament I assume (If England qualify of course)

AWAY WIN

As it happened, England were beaten by the visitors from Spain. They took an early lead through Marcus Rashford, one they could only hold onto for a couple of minutes before Saul equalised. By halftime the hosts were behind,  joke defending at a freekick allowed Rodrigo in at the near post to put the Spanish 1-2 up. In all fairness the 2010 World Cup winners dominated for large parts of the game and should really have scored further goals to finish off the English. However Gareth Southgate’s men came on strong at the end and did actually put the ball into the net after an error by Spain goalkeeper David de Gea, but Danny Welbeck’s goal was harshly disallowed for a foul.

REALITY BITES FOR ‘GS’

As previously mentioned, all those fairweather fans, who delighted in England’s World Cup run will hopefully realise that beating average sides and getting a favourable draw means nothing if you don’t go on to win the tournament. To be fair Gareth ‘GS’ Southgate was fully aware of this and during the game against Spain his team looked bereft of ideas, especially in midfield and you could see the tactic was to counter attack and see what they could get from dead ball situations. Their goal came from a break away, after some lovely intricate passing, but after that, as previously mentioned, they were totally outplayed, until late in the game when the opposition seemed to step off and to their credit England went up a gear and created some decent chances – the aforementioned de Gea thwarting his club teammate, Rashford on more than one occasion. We saw in Russia this style worked well against average opposition but not when they faced the better teams. Remember they lost to Croatia and on two occasions to Belgium. They may have finished 4th at the World Cup, but they are most definitely not the 4th best team in the world.

WHAT NEXT

England have now lost 3 competitive internationals in a row, admittedly I don’t see the 3rd/4th playoff clash as anything other than a game played just for the hospitality, but it is still classed as a match that matters. Admittedly, Southgate’s main target is qualification for Euro 2020 and that  process doesn’t actually begin until March, but continual losses are never a good thing.  Thankfully they managed to stop the rot, in their friendly against Switzerland with a 1-0 victory and after a series of defeats any sort of win must be seen as a positive.  Next up, yes you have guessed it, Croatia away, in their Nations League group on October 12th, the team that broke their hearts in Moscow at the semi final stage, and seeing that they lost their opening game in the tournament 6-0, the Croatians will be looking to bounce back strongly. Another, Three Lions defeat, prior to a visit to face table topping Spain, just 3 days later will most definitely signal the end of the honeymoon period for the English and their manager. We will learn a lot about the so called ‘new’ England very soon.

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