England are off to the World Cup, but after their performance against Slovenia on Thursday it is hard to imagine that anybody is actually looking forward to seeing them in action next summer.
The 1-0 snoozefest at Wembley was enough to secure England’s passage to the finals in Russia in June, but the abject nature of their display will have left nobody in any doubt that Gareth Southgate’s side will be in for a hard slog just to get out of their group.
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There seemed to be little more in their game plan than to pass the ball sideways until Marcus Rashford was in space, then stand still and watch the Manchester United star do what he could out on the left. There was no verve, no creativity, no fight. There was absolutely nothing until they finally got themselves into a crossing position in the 94th minute and Kyle Walker sent in an excellent ball for Harry Kane to slide home.
For a team packed with talented players who have recently been performing with gay abandon in the Premier League, this was a strangely pedestrian showing even by England’s recent standards.
Walker, John Stones and Raheem Sterling with Manchester City, Rashford at neighbours United, Eric Dier and Kane with Tottenham… these players have hardly been struggling to deliver on the ball in the 2017-18 season so far. And yet they combined on Thursday to put on one of the most lifeless exhibitions of football you could ever wish to miss.
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It seems laughable after sitting through these 96 minutes to read back Stones’ comments earlier this week when asked about the possibility of reproducing the kind of football City play with the England team.
“We’ve got the players to do it,” said the defender. “It’s difficult to bring how you play in the Premier League into international football. It’s so different, but we’re always striving to become better and there’s a lot of likeness between how City play and international football. Or to how Tottenham play. But to gel all those things is very difficult.
“As long as England win and keep clean sheets and keep bettering ourselves every year and making the nation proud, that’s all that matters.”
A trio of performances like this one in Russia next summer will not make the country proud, and having achieved his initial objective Southgate must now do everything necessary to make England a more attractive proposition. They are not going to get out of their group with such a negative, regressive approach, no matter who they are drawn against.
Southgate should tear up whatever plan he has – if he has one at all – and start from scratch. The use of two defensive midfielders against lesser teams is simply unnecessary and stunts England’s progress. The belief in Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain despite his woes at club level is mystifying. The isolation until second-half stoppage-time of Kane during the best run of his career boggles the mind.
At a time when the Premier League is producing so many open, attacking, vibrant teams and English players are at the heart of many of them it is absolutely baffling that the national team should be able to underwhelm so outrageously.
It reflects badly on the England team but also on their manager that they should be limping towards the World Cup finals looking in such poor shape. Don’t go betting on them doing anything of note next June unless Southgate goes back to the drawing board.
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