That may be true, but, traditionally speaking, he seems to do quite good work when you give him the ball in the box. You know, crosses and that sort of stuff. But it's often been the case. I remember him getting a lot of flak in the last Euros for playing bad when they weren't giving him the ball then either. Considering how many goals he's scored for England it's almost surprising he's got that many. Our midfield just isn't creative.
The fact we were able to bring on Watkins, Eze and Bowen, three players who’d start for about 95% of the teams in the tournament and still barely trouble the opposition tells you there’s something fundamentally wrong with the tactics and style of play. Palmer, Gordon not even getting off the bench either. So much quality in this squad yet we look like a poor man’s Pulis Stoke team.
That may be an issue with the available players, but that's something that the manager has to deal with. Make the central midfield solid, make sure that the team has width and create chances that way. Kane, Saka, Foden and Gordon get assists. Put them in a position to do so.
Bellingham's started to believe his own hype, 4 or 5 times he's overplayed and gave away the ball, he looks knackered
There are very few pundits who have a solid tactical grasp of the game beyond the specific positions they used to play in. Most will therefore default to simplistic or nonsensical 'solutions'. Blaming Kane for England's struggles is like giving Lewis Hamilton a Ford Mondeo with poorly aligned tires and then blaming him when he doesn't qualify. He is our best passer of the ball. We are also blessed with an abundance of attacking players who aren't exactly goal shy themselves, who would benefit enormously from his ability to link up play. But he has been asked to play as the most advanced focal point, which would be fine if we had wide attackers floating crosses in, but we don't. We have two wide men who prefer to cut inside, one full back who cannot cross the ball and another who can but is currently playing on his weaker side. So Kane is trundling along in the Ford Mondeo, his game neutered before we've even kicked off.
This. Absolutely clueless, just chucking players on without much thought. You can't use subs to implement a Plan B if you didn't have a Plan A to start with. He's just building sandcastles at high tide.
Southgate has just said this: "We've played teams that are quite fluid in a back three and it's not easy to get pressure on them." Tactically inept. The reason they look so fluid at the back is because we aren't putting any real pressure on them. He doesn't know his cart from his horse. Or his arse from his cardigan.
