Southgate gets set to drill into Hungary display
GARETH SOUTHGATE will pore over an “unusually disjointed performance” against Hungary to ensure England put it right and wrap up World Cup qualification next month.
A home match against Albania and a trip to minnows San Marino are all that remains for the Group I leaders on the road to Qatar, with the unbeaten Three Lions holding a three-point cushion over nearest rivals Poland.
The fact some bookmakers have them priced at 1/1,000 to top the pool underlines the feeling that it would take something remarkable to derail their qualification, but Tuesday’s meek performance was surprising.
A month on from winning 4-0 in Budapest, England were made to sweat at Wembley as John Stones cancelled out Roland Sallai’s penalty in a 1-1 draw marred by away fan violence and an arrest for racism.
Euro 2020 stars Harry Kane and Raheem Sterling were among the below-par performers, but Southgate is not sure if it is down to any hangover from the summer having also failed to reach the heights at club level.
“I mean, it’s easy to speculate but I think every individual is different,” the England boss said. “I thought it was just one of those nights where we started poorly, we weren’t in contact with them on our pressure, which gave them a little bit of comfort in the game.
“We gave needless passes away that led to counter-attacks that gives you the feeling that you’re stretched, even though they didn’t create really clear chances.
“I just thought it was an unusually disjointed performance that we’ve got to go away and look at closely and make sure we put it right for next month.”
Such were England’s struggles that Southgate made the eyecatching decision to replace captain Kane and Sterling in search of a late winner.
“I just think we didn’t play as well as a team with the ball as we should and as we can,” he said when asked about taking off Tottenham striker Kane, who has yet to score a Premier League goal this season.
“In the end we felt the need to try and refresh that, to give a different problem, to get some fresh legs into the game.
“I think with any of our forward players there’s always going to be a story if we take any of them off because understandably they’re big players.
“But we’ve got to have a team where we’re able to do that otherwise we’ll never progress.
“We felt that was the right thing at the time but I don’t think singling out any of the players tonight really serves any purpose because we were all responsible for the performance, really.”
Southgate also changed the system as “we wanted to try and get a spark”, but the move to wing-backs only succeeded in stifling Hungary’s counterattacks rather than boosting the attack.
In all, it was an unsatisfactory display on a night when the attack-minded 4-3-3 starting line-up had looked exciting on paper.
“I think we’ve been playing 4-3-3 a lot but perhaps with different profile of number eights, so we wanted to look at something a little bit different,” Southgate added.