England must find creative talent to start beating best teams in world
THE fact England could lose a fourth consecutive game when they take on Switzerland tonight is neither here nor there.
What will really matter for Gareth Southgate is the style and substance of the performance, collectively and individually.
That’s far more important in terms of our post-World Cup progression than whether or not we’ve won or lost a few on the bounce.
Southgate knows the way he wants his Three Lions side to play – he advocates possession-based football.
So he will be telling his players, ‘Take risks and show me what you’ve got because I’m not changing the way we play to accommodate anyone who can’t do it. If somebody can’t keep the ball then I’ll find other players who can plug those gaps’. He has already brought in Ben Chilwell and Demarai Gray from the Under-21s and, while both are to cover injuries, it was a positive move which gets a big round of applause from me.
After the World Cup I wrote down what I hoped would be England’s target for 2018 – beat one or both of Spain or Croatia home or away.
We lost against Spain at home so what I want to see tonight is a performance against the Swiss which says we’ll be able to mix it when we take on the Spaniards away.
If we do lose all our matches against Spain and Croatia then the argument that we met only sub-standard opposition at the World Cup would be stronger than the one which says, ‘Hey, we’re World Cup semi-finalists’.
So it’s up to England now to keep proving people wrong and keep showing what they are made of.
There were positives in defeat on Saturday. Dele Alli impressed me and Marcus Rashford took his goal well.
Rashford’s movement in the box was good, although out of it he didn’t look like he really knew what runs to make. He seemed unsure whether to come short or go in behind. The one time he did get it right he scored – that is symptomatic of someone not playing in their preferred position or even regularly at club level.
What we are really short of as things stand, though, is a topquality defensive midfielder and a playmaker/ attacking midfielder, someone to makes things happen where it matters.
We need an N’Golo Kante-type protector for the back line, a player who will snuff out danger before it starts. The France star did this Leicester and now Chelsea.
I don’t think Tottenham’s Eric Dier is the answer because he’s too pedestrian at international level.
And we still haven’t got a player who will get the ball on halfway, gallop 20 yards and give it to Harry Kane to do what he does best. We can’t keep relying on scoring goals from set-pieces. We need to be scoring more goals through creative play, more goals like the one we scored on Saturday. People have talked about Leicester’s James Maddison (left) or Aston Villa’s highly-rated Jack Grealish (above) but, while they have potential, there are no guarantees they are the missing link. Creativity in those central positions is the biggest conundrum for England and I would love to see someone show me they have what it takes to solve that problem – starting tonight.