Kane claims referee ‘bottled it’ by ruling out Welbeck’s effort

England captain insists that official’s decision prevented deserved draw with Spain, reports Sam Wallace

Harry Kane accused the Dutch referee Danny Makkelie of “bottling it” when he disallowed Danny Welbeck’s injurytime equaliser for a foul on David De Gea in England’s 2-1 Wembley defeat to Spain in their first Nations League game.

Makkelie judged that Welbeck had fouled the Manchester United goalkeeper before he dropped the ball in an extended period added on at the end of the match because of a serious injury to Luke Shaw. The full-back was carried off on a stretcher with his neck in a brace after a collision with Dani Carvawith

jal on 47 minutes. Shaw, watched at Wembley by club manager Jose Mourinho, later tweeted: “Thank you for all the love and support, I am doing fine and am in the best hands. I’m a fighter so I will be back soon.”

England pushed hard in the closing stages and thought they had the equaliser in the 97th minute. Kane said later: “In the big moments you need the referee to stay strong but unfortunately he has bottled it. In the big moments you need a firm referee who doesn’t get decisions wrong under pressure. Danny Welbeck stood there, De Gea went up, he caught the ball but as he went down he fell on Danny, no foul or anything, and the ball dropped.

“It was a good game, a good test against a team that keeps the ball well.

‘‘It was difficult but we had good spells in the game and we probably

created the better chances. We tried to press and play with high intensity. There’s a lot of stuff we can learn from but we can hold our heads up high.”

England took the lead on 11 minutes with an excellent move capped by Shaw’s pass to Marcus Rashford who scored on the run. Spain equalised through Saul Niguez, the Atletico Madrid midfielder, and Valencia’s Rodrigo scored the winner on 32 minutes. Spain enjoyed 60 per cent possession and Southgate conceded they deserved to win in spite of the referee’s decision.

It was the first time an England team had lost three competitive games in a row since Euro 1988 and the first time they had lost a competitive game at home since a 3-2 defeat to Croatia in Nov 2007 that meant the team missed out on qualification for Euro 2008.

Shaw’s injury disrupted the game

fears it could be very serious. Southgate said he was not sure Shaw was knocked unconscious by the Real Madrid full-back’s arm as the 23-yearold back-tracked to cut-out a long diagonal pass. He appeared to fall heavily,

Medical staff tended to the motionless full-back for several minutes, administering oxygen and covering his eyes before carefully placing him on a stretcher. At one point, they waved away concerned team-mates. Sky Sports didn’t show replays of the incident.

Southgate said: “He [Shaw] is sat up in the dressing room, talking and seems fairly comfortable. We’ll have to assess him a bit more overnight, but that’s definitely a good sign. There’ll be tests. We won’t take any chances with his health, it was a nasty looking fall, but he is awake and talking.”

The England manager said he believed the late Welbeck effort should have beeen given as a goal. He said: “The two defenders tried to block Danny out of it. De Gea came over the top and just dropped it. It’s clear for everyone to see. It should have been a goal. But over the 90 minutes, Spain were better than us for long periods of

the game. We know the quality they possess. Their retention of the ball was top class. We were a little bit disjointed with our pressing, particularly in the first half, but when you’re playing against players who wriggle out of situations and play their way out - we can’t do that.”

Shaw will be withdrawn from the squad to face Switzerland on Tuesday at Leicester City. Southgate said that there would be players promoted from the Under-21s for the friendly on Tuesday.

As for the bigger picture after a World Cup semi-final this summer, Southgate said that the test of playing against Spain showed how much progress was required from England.

“We’ve got some players who can and have shown [against Spain] they

can perform at that level, and others who are still a work in progress. We have 19 matches [until Euro 2020], not very long. But we have the best group of players in the country here. We have some others who might come back from injury and maybe come in through the junior ranks.

“We have to keep faith in the way we’re trying to play, otherwise we go back to what we did historically. There’s no way we’ll ever be a top team if we do that. We have to be brave enough to stick to our principles, and identify how to improve. But that won’t be easy. You can see the level of the top teams. I said that in the summer. We’re prepared for that challenge.”

The Spain manager Luis Enrique said he had not seen the Welbeck disallowed goal but believed his side deserved to win.

He said: “I liked the attitude of my players. They managed to impose our idea of football on the game despite the early goal. There is room for improvement, especially with what happened at the end of the game when we suffered quite a bit. But it’s only normal when you play England at Wembley. That happens.’’

‘It’s clear for everyone to see that Welbeck’s injury-time effort should have been given as a goal’