Cheer up lads, you’re through to the knockouts!
feel we are a team who are improving. We have levels still to reach and work to do, but that’s nothing we didn’t already know.
‘We know how immaculate we have to be to win matches against the best teams and that challenge is still to come.’
Meanwhile, Wahbi Khazri of Sunderland scored the winner as Tunisia came from behind to beat Panama 2-1 in Saransk to finish third in Group G.
UNTIL this defeat the only foot Gareth Southgate had put wrong at this World Cup was the one that left him nursing a dislocated shoulder. But there was something slightly troubling about this last night — something as uncomfortable as the heavy strapping England’s manager had to wear under his shirt on that sweaty Sunday afternoon in Nizhny Novgorod.
It was more merely than the decision by Southgate to make so many changes that they lost all momentum at this tournament.
It was the passive response to a wonderful goal from Adnan Januzaj that meant Belgium would secure a more preferable last 16 encounter with a side ranked six places below Panama.
And it was the sight of Southgate waiting 28 minutes before sending on another striker, and at that moment turning not to Harry Kane but to a forward making his first appearance here in Russia. As a consequence, Belgium now meet Japan while England face Colombia — rather more dangerous opponents when they boast players of the quality of Radamel Falcao and James Rodriguez, assuming the latter is not too seriously injured.
Of course, if England’s first team now win that game, rested and full of running, Southgate will feel vindicated given that it would then be either Sweden or Switzerland, rather than Brazil or Mexico, in the quarter-finals.
But that is the kind of gamble Southgate dismissed as foolish prior to this contest, one he did not appear prepared to take.
After all, there are no guarantees that Brazil will beat Mexico — certainly not at this World Cup — and the focus, surely, should always remain on beating the next opponents rather than turning this into a tournament for clairvoyants.
The fact is England did not require a crystal ball to discover which team they might meet next. That was decided a couple of hours before kickoff when Colombia beat Senegal and rescued a Japan side that had contrived to lose to a Poland team with nothing but pride to play for.
But Southgate stuck to his guns, making eight changes and sending out a team that lacked the dynamism and daring of the side we saw in the first two games.
The ‘ primary objective’, insisted Southgate afterwards, was for ‘everyone to have time on the pitch’ and give those players who endured the punishing heat of the previous game more time to recover. But at the expense of a better result and with it a more tricky last-16 draw?
It sounded like Southgate did not anticipate Japan getting through, hinting that Senegal had been prominent in his thoughts when the decision was taken to prepare for this game.
Not much to choose between the Africans and the South Americans, and therefore no great advantage to be had. As Southgate then acknowledged, he could face criticism ‘in some quarters’.
In fairness, Roberto Martinez made nine changes to his line-up, and when the Belgium fans cheered the sight of their players being booked in the first half, one was left with a sinking feeling in a stadium slowly disappearing into the swamp it stands on.
This, however, began to look like a ruse, something that may have left this young England side with a false sense of security in the belief that their opponents really did want to play their next game close to their Moscow training base.
The truth is that Belgium always looked more dangerous last night, boasting the best of the chances in the opening half and then breaking the deadlock six minutes after the break.
Were Belgium pleased to score? Judging by the way Martinez celebrated and his assistant Thierry Henry leapt off the Belgian bench, you’d say so.
Before the game Southgate was praised for his bravery by Gary Neville, with Lee Dixon suggesting this was a situation he simply couldn’t win. From Gary Lineker, however, came the raw emotion that a World Cup is supposed to stir. ‘If I were a player, I’d want to win the match. I’d want to win the group. I’d want to win a bloody knockout game for once. And I’d want to play against Brazil in the quarter-finals of the World Cup. That’s what it’s all about,’ he declared on Twitter.
Southgate will maintain he tried to win this game but you have to wonder if his own experience as a player who spent an entire World Cup on the bench influenced his judgment too much here, and if concerns for squad morale came before the need to be ruthless.
Yes, it remained prudent to protect Kane when qualification for the knockout stages had already been secured. Sensible too to rest other key individuals. But they played like a team of understudies and the decision to send on Danny Welbeck ahead of Kane, when only 11 minutes remained, is one Southgate could yet regret.
By then Marcus Rashford had squandered the one decent chance England had created in this game before then finding himself playing as a right-sided wing-back.
Rashford was denied by a terrific save from Thibaut Courtois. It was the act of a man who wanted to win this game, in a team who wanted to win this game, and a team who probably wanted to play Japan more than Colombia.
Southgate might yet have the last laugh, and he might well be rewarded for his bravery in sticking to a particular plan. But when the stakes are this high, my word that’s a gamble.