England must tidy up defensively
Pristina
After a qualifying campaign that produced a whopping 37 goals in eight games and six conceded, it would seem harsh to criticise England but manager Gareth Southgate recognises that defensive blips could cost his team dear at the Euro 2020 finals.
Captain Harry Kane scored a remarkable 12th goal of the campaign, the most across Europe, as England beat Kosovo 4-0 on Sunday to secure one of the top six seeded berths for the tournament and maintain an average of over four goals a game.
Other than their 2-1 defeat in the Czech Republic last month,
England have barely broken sweat in swatting aside the likes of Kosovo, Montenegro, Bulgaria and even the also-qualified Czechs – who they beat 5-0 at Wembley.
Southgate is awash with attacking options up front and in midfield but he will be paying much more attention to the other side of things after Kosovo, like Montenegro on Thursday, where they gifted a number of opportunities through slack marking or poor organisation that better teams would undoubtedly have taken.
“We needed a tighter game and a challenge and I’m happy we got that,” said Southgate, whose side beat Kosovo 5-3 at Southampton’s stadium in a wildly open match in
September.
“We had to sustain spells of pressure and gave them chances – on another night that would be a problem. Set plays in particular are something we need to go away and look at – not that we’ve conceded - but there are too many chances given away.
“We are always looking to improve, we know there is a bit of work to do but I can’t fault the players through this campaign, they’ve been absolutely ruthless.”
Leading the way is Kane, who became the first England player to score in every match of a qualifying campaign and equalled the England record of 12 goals in a calendar year jointly held by George Hilsdon (1908) and Dixie Dean (1927). – Reuters