JazzG wrote:
England's tactics got exposed, at 1-1 more than happy to go into the extra time. When he took Rice off for Henderson, that has to be Grealish coming on and drop Mount into midfield. The two CMs literally sat right on top of the CBs, they had to be higher up the pitch and battling with the Italian CMs.
Also while the narrative is they've played without fear fact is England have played very conserative and mostly negative football. Yesterday it caught up with them in the end, after the early goal went into their shell and had no outlet or any meaningful attacks.
That is the most painful thing.
We deliberately went into a shell.
The Italians were there for the taking, in front our crowd, taking the lead after 2 mins, and we let them off the hook.
The same Italy side who barely touched the ball against Spain, had nearly 70% possession in the normal 90 minutes. Ridiculous.
The wing backs stayed back, meaning we had seven players behind the ball, with sometimes Sterling also behind the ball.
With Mount who did sweet F.A, and Kane who likes to drop deep, we literally had no outlet. It was obvious from 20 mins in the first half. Yet Southgate made no attempt to change it until Italy scored.
Bearing in mind the quality we had sitting on the bench, it was one of the most negative displays I have seen from a manger. Scandalous.
If it wasn’t for Chiesa, the match would have been over and yet we couldn’t deal with him. When all the Italian heads were dropping, he was the fighter, he was the one who lead the charge, an he swapped flanks to have a run at Trippier and Walker who are weak defensively. Southgate showed no nous in dealing with what was unfolding right in front of him.
