Montenegro 1 – 5 England: Our First ever win in Montenegro

It seems the days of watching England playing away from home and struggling to get a one to two nil victory or even a draw are over. As under Southgate, England are establishing themselves as an outstanding team that look to fear no one whether they are playing in front of 80,000 at Wembley, or in front of an initimidating crowd in Eastern Europe.

Before last night, England had not won away in Montenegro, having drawn twice after taking the lead in the previous games and then struggling. Montenegro however took the lead themselves this time around, but there was absolutely no panic from the England lads as they just continued with their game plan and it wasn’t too long before they were level.

Michael Keane headed the equaliser from a wide Barkley free-kick, to make up for his slight error on seventeen minutes to allow Marko Vesovic to give the home side the lead. On thirty-eight minutes though, England were in front when Barkley made it 2-1 when he converted Callum Hudson-Odoi’s cross come shot from close range.

Hudson-Odoi and Sterling were superb on the night and their pace was frightening at times and the Montenegro defenders were constantly kept on their toes. That showed with England’s third goal when Sterling tried a few times to cross the ball into the box but couldn’t, undeterred his third attempt eventually found an unmarked Barkley who made it 3-1.

Sterling was then also involved in both England’s fourth and fifth goals when he made the same run inside the left full-back and beating the offside trap. For the fourth goal he put a simple cross into the path of Harry Kane for this twenty-second international goal. Sterling then converted himself for the fifth as he put the ball under the oncoming keeper for his fourth goal in two games.

Highlights

Just like he is for Manchester City, Sterling is playing some absolutely outstanding football at the moment, so lets just hope he continues to get better and better. As much as Barkley was the main man last night with his two goals that he converted from the chances he had, it was still Sterling that shone for us on the night.

Racism

Now the thing I didn’t want to have to be writing about, more racism in football after terrible scenes ones again from certain sections of the Montenegro crowd. When some fans racially abused Sterling, Danny Rose and Callum Hudson-Odoi with certain noises throughout the game. Thankfully the England lads conducted themselves superbly, especially 18-year-old Hudson-Odoi who mas making his full England debut.

https://twitter.com/sterling7/status/1110306018515435520

Thankfully, immediately after the game Gareth Southgate condemned the scenes in his post-match interview when he was asked about it straight away. Unfortunately there is not much Southgate can do about it. The issue is there and it’s up to UEFA to try and do something more than just punishment of say a £10,000 fine for the Football Association of Montenegro. The England manager should not be coming off the pitch after a 5-1 away win and say “It’s a ready sad evening,” because of what else has happened.

Southgate

Back to football and I have been fully behind Southgate since he inherited Sam Allardyce’s team with the like of Rooney, Walcott, Jagielka and Sturridge in. I could not have envisaged how much he could have moved the squad on as Southgate is not afraid to throw in young players and give them debuts, rather than going back to “experienced” players like previous managers would have done.

It’s great that the likes of Declan Rice, James Ward-Prowse, Jadon Sancho and Hudson-Odoi are being given their chance, but not only that, they’re not even looking out of place. There was also plenty of players that were not even in the squad last night, like Rashford, so the squad is good and healthy and even with injuries we have enough players to come in.

Anyway, next up for England is the Nation League semi-final against Holland in June. Lets hope we can win that as that would be brilliant for us as a nation.