By the time the PA announcer announced a “lap of appreciation” – an excitement that seemed at the time a level of malicious mockery – England’s players were applauding amid a stretch of empty red plastic seats.One of the greatest fears among the big teams in tournament football is peaking too early, and on that front at least, England seem safe.
Instead they chose the nuclear option, the ultimate retreat. They lost 1-0 to a team from Iceland, currently ranked 72nd in the world, and were booed by grade-school kids. And they didn’t just lose, they lost badly. They lost badly, like a team suffering from a particularly bad migraine.
A certain amount of lethargy is understandable. This isn’t even the official release date yet. England fly to Leipzig on Monday. For now, in the lead-up to their departure, players are spitting out motion sickness pills, munching on sawdust chocolates issued by the army as a final bonus, and nervously fingering their parachute packs. Nobody wants to get hurt right now. This game, thrown in at the end of a week of Big Brother-style eliminations, felt unnecessary.
The problem for Gareth Southgate is that there are still puzzles to be solved. He has thoroughly dismantled the squad he has built over the past few months, injecting something new, applying a sort of alchemy to the pieces and convincing himself that he can unleash a bolt of lightning on this team.
But there was basically nothing here. No pulse, no tension, no sense of systems, no use of weapons. Passes and combinations were botched or unattempted. For those who weren’t there, it was a great game. Conor Gallagher has never looked more appealing; spiteful, energetic, prickly.
And we just keep going. It’s foolish to expect success in any tournament. England is expecting. It’s generally wrong for England to expect. But England will expect. What’s interesting this time is that, in theory, this team actually has a chance to win the Euros. But they also have their flaws. They have a high ceiling. They have holes in their ceiling.
The team has made significant changes to its squad in search of solutions to problems at left back, central midfield and central defence, and the problem for Southgate after this defeat is that he learned nothing about any of those roles – or rather, everything he learned was bad.
Those areas of concern were filled by left-back Kieran Trippier, who will start at the Euros. He’s a warrior and a smart defender, but he was underpowered in a team that needed width.
At centre-back, Marc Guehi should be considered as the starting centre-back alongside John Stones. He’s good on the ball. Not particularly aggressive in the air. Iceland outplayed him a bit. Without a dominant presence there at least, it’s hard to see them having any problems.
And finally, central midfield, key for any tournament team, started the day visibly empty and remained so at the end. Coby Mainu’s selection suggests he’s in a good position. Mainu is a fine young player. But the double pivot with Declan Rice didn’t work here. Rice needed to hold back a bit more. His lunges were missed. And there was too much space. The midfield was too friendly. Mainu is an artist. England needed someone more intent on filling the spaces, more spite.
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The worst part was the goal. Iceland ripped effortlessly through the English midfield, Jon Dagur Thorsteinsson smashed his way onto Wembley’s lime-green expanse, Mainu rallied back, Stones took too long to challenge, the shot was low and strong and flew into the corner. But it was all so dead, lacking any energy, any resistance, any element of team building.
Southgate will be scared. This is what he fears, what he worries about – being vulnerable, fragile, defenseless. Opponents have commented on the sheer force of Southgate’s best teams, the feeling of running into a wall of cement bags. This time England were physically weak.
As for who will be covering next to Rice, nothing has been resolved. The No. 4 role (old notation) is very complicated. Angles are custom and unusual. Coverage radar, the spider sense of where and how to cover, is crucial.
In the absence of a specialist, England will undoubtedly pack that area with extra energy, with Gallagher’s engine roaring endlessly and Jude Bellingham replacing Phil Foden at No 10. Foden’s performance here is best erased from history, pixelated as much as possible from the remaining tape.
The second half was, if anything, even worse. England’s seams were too loose, their spaces too wide. Sometimes, especially a good, polite team like this one, you need to be a little angry. Watch the video of this defeat again and you’ll see that.
Now, on to Blankenhain: England still expects, England always will expect, at least a lot more than this.
