- Aug 15, 2013
- 7,507
- 13,052
Think it’s basically a case of Southgate being too risk averse in too many areas which basically handed the initiative to Scotland and nullified our own threats. He simply didn’t exploit the resources he had.Plenty of negatives to take from that, on the flip side I actually thought Luke Shaw had a very tidy game as did Mings, I'm not sure about right back, James did well though I think Walker just edges it for me. Pickford had a really good game, couple of good saves, commanded his area on set peices well and has a rocket launcher of a left foot.
Kane was isolated but didn't help himself with largely wasting the scraps he was given.
Rice and Philips didn't work today, far too conservative. Rice especially annoyed me throughout with his frequent inability to get his head up, instead relying on the ball back to a CB over and over again.
Also, there were plenty of signs throughout the game that seemed to indicate to me that players were instructed to take a conservative approach. Don’t think I’ve ever seen Reece James play as passively going forward as he did today.
The DM pivot only makes sense against Scotland if there is urgency with the ball progression and movement to link to our AMs/forwards or to the flanks. There was none. When it did go to our FBs in space, particularly James on the right, it was just recycled back to Rice more often than not and the ball got stuck in non-threatening areas.
It was really crying out for a Bellingham, and I know he’s young, in place of one of the DMs to give us more attacking thrust from those positions. Hope we see Grealish against the Czechs; think Sterling can be dropped. And I hope the FBs, whoever they are, get much more of an attacking remit from Southgate. We should have got 3 points today, and would have with the right approach from Southgate.