Sterling in Kane’s space

England's average positions v Croatia

There was a tactical change by Southgate for the knockout stages as he played Raheem Sterling (left) further forward than Harry Kane. There was sound tactical sense to this given Sterling’s pace and he caused problems for Colombia, Sweden and Croatia. In the first half of the semi-final he easily had the beating of Dejan Lovren and Domagoj Vida and it was a clear instruction to try and hit Sterling early. Eventually the Croatians saw this coming. The problem was it pushed Kane too far away from goal. In essence Sterling was in Kane’s space and it may have made more sense to eventually push him out wide to try and also negate the runs of right-back Sime Vrsaljko.