Brittle Belgian defence is limited without Kompany
ON the sidelines at Spartak Stadium Vincent Kompany wore the broadest of smiles. Romelu Lukaku had just scored Belgium’s second goal of the day and life at World Cup 2018 was starting to look rather rosy for the Group G favourites.
It was, however, hard to watch Belgium here without reaching the conclusion that Roberto Martinez will be best served by Kompany getting himself back in the team before the more difficult games come along.
Recovered from a groin injury that has prevented him training with Belgium since they arrived in Russia, there is some hope within Martinez’s squad that their captain could be back for Thursday’s decisive game with England. Strange as it sounds after such an easy victory, but Belgium may need him. Kompany is something of a divisive figure in his home country. Some believe him to be a little too pleased with himself for his own good. That has occasionally been said of him by figures past and present at Manchester City as well. Nevertheless, the 32-year-old remains a fine footballer and, despite Belgium’s serene progress through this World Cup so far, there were signs in Moscow yesterday that there is a slight brittleness at the heart of their back line that would probably not survive an encounter with a better team than Tunisia. Tunisia were no better than they were against England. They were certainly just as bad in their own half, constantly giving the ball away to invite pressure on their own goal. Just like England last Monday, Belgium could have been four up inside 15 minutes. But when they did have possession in their opponents’ half — especially in the first period — the Africans were able to cause Belgium some discomfort.
At the centre of Martinez’s back three, Celtic’s Dedryck Boyata did not always look happy, not least when he lost his man far too easily as Dylan Bronn headed Tunisia back into the game from a rudimentary set-piece midway through the opening half.
Often choosing to press Belgium quite high when they were attempting to pass the ball out from the back, Tunisia had some success and that is something that England’s quicker forwards may well have noticed.
The game against England will be very different. Belgium will not be able to play with such freedom and they will not be given the acres of space they exploited to such good effect yesterday.
The dangers came from predictable sources. Eden Hazard was superb yet again, both in movement and his work with the ball. After a poor season with Chelsea, the little forward looks as though he has been saving himself for this tournament.
Some good players arrive at summer competitions almost spent after a season’s toil but Hazard looks the opposite of that.
With Napoli’s Dries Mertens equally impish and dexterous and Lukaku showing the confidence that can make all the difference to him, Martinez has his attacking unit fit and firing.
Only Kevin De Bruyne looked slightly cowed by his deeper role in this formation — being replaced by Marouane Fellaini after an hour — but even he managed to find a long pass to supply Hazard with his second goal of the game early in the second half.
So England must look for small cracks as they try to dismantle a team who look as though they have been brought to the serious business of World Cup football in fine fettle by their Spanish manager.
Beneath the deluge of Belgian goals, Southgate and his staff will have seen a little of what they were looking for, though. They will not travel to Kaliningrad without hope.