Ward-prowse happy with his spot of gamesmanship
● Delaying tactic before Iceland’s penalty just part of his new ‘dark’ side
Midfielder James Ward-Prowse believes that England should start using football’ s dark arts, revealing that players are already learning the shaded ways at their clubs.
Southampton’ s Ward-Prowse made his first start for England in their narrow, painful-to -watch victor y against Iceland at the weekend and made a subtly telling impact at the death.
The score was goalless until England won a dubious penalty in the last minute and the game looked over when Raheem Sterling scored it. Yet straight from kick-off Iceland won a penalty.
As Iceland’s Birkir Bjarnason prepared to take it, WardProwse appeared to scuff the penalty spot with his boot and seconds later Bjarnason sent the ball high over Jordan Pick ford’ s cross bar. WardProwse denied the accusation after wards, claiming it was merely a “delaying tactic”, but thinks it would certainly benefit the national team if players became more streetwise in crucial moments.
“It’s something that we can all take forward for sure ,” Ward-prowse said. “At club level certainly we’ve developed that ourselves and learnt a lot with that. I think it’s just something that’s added to my game and it’s an important factor in the modern game now.
“It wasn’t any digging of the spot, it was more just delaying the penalty. It was a mad few minutes for everybody, we just scored what we thought was the winning goal and then we were facing a penalty. [It was] just more of a delaying tactic, for everyone to get their heads together and prepare for the penalty. Thankfully it went in our favour.
“Certain scenarios in a game you find where you have to take yourself out of the situation and see what’s best at that time.
“It’s something certainly at club level we have employed. We maybe have the reputation of being a bit too nice and we’ve had to show a bit more aggression and bit more of that darker side to help us win games and I think it’s something I’ve learnt along the way.”
England manager Gareth Southgate, meanwhile, has warned critics not to judge his players on their performances against Iceland. The side face Denmark tomorrow in their second Nations League match of what was supposed to be the first international break following the start of the Premier League season but which has instead fallen during preseason due to the delay caused by the pandemic.
Southgate’s already limited preparation time has been hampered by the differing levels of fitness amongst players. Harry Kane, for example, missed two weeks of preseason training with Tottenham Hotspur due to being forced to quarantine at home when he returned from a holiday in the Bahamas and was off-the-pace against Iceland.
“I don’t think we should be judging any player on the Iceland game because they’ re in the middle of preseason,” South gate said .“There are things we can take from the game and lessons we can learn as a group, but I wouldn’t be judging a player’s ability – any of them – on the match.”
Manchester City defender Kyle Walker was brought back into the England fold for these matches but was sent off with 20 minutes remaining for two yellow cards. With Liverpool’ s Trent Alexander-Arnold expected to be England’s first-choice right-back going forward, Walker, 30, spoke after the match as though his international career could be over, but Southgate insisted he has made no such decision yet.
“We wouldn’t have brought Kyle back into the squad if we didn’t think he could do that job,” Southgate said. “He’s still a very experienced player. There’s competition for places. Kyle knows he’s made an error that shouldn’t have happened, but I’m certainly not going to rule him out on that moment.”
“It’s something at club level we have employed. We maybe have the reputation of being a bit too nice” JAMES WARD-PROWSE