ENGLAND CAN THINK ON THEIR FEET
Lukaku bullies Three Lions defence but improved second half shows. . .
IT’S amazing the difference a couple of yards can make. Given just that amount of space for the first half of this game, Belgium’s Romelu Lukaku appeared to be the kind of centre forward he very rarely was during his Premier League days.
Lukaku — now of Inter Milan — was a bully with a velvet touch at Wembley yesterday. Everything he did worked, for a while. He won and converted a penalty. He set up team-mates with back heels, received the ball with his back to goal and either played colleagues in or turned and set off for goal.
It was an imperious half of football by Lukaku, formerly of Chelsea, West Bromwich, Everton and Manchester United, and had it continued it is likely Belgium would have won n this game. But it didn’t continue because it t was not allowed to.
At half-time, no doubt encouraged by their r manager, England’s three central defenders s awoke to their generosity and failings. They y changed their approach, started to get that t yard or two closer to Lukaku and didn’t allow w him the time to do everything he wanted.
They made him hurry, made him think. It t was a crucial change in a contest that t England looked well out of at one stage, but t they recovered to such an extent that they y eased through the second half.
It is true that England needed some e fortune with their goals to get out of f this alive; a half-baked penalty and a deflection. But against the team ranked No 1 in the world, this was a performance that improved hugely as s it went on.
The manner in which the game was turned slowly on its head will not have been lost on Gareth Southgate as he e looks to identify the players who can respond when big questions are asked. For sure, England’s central defenders were rotten for the first half an hour or more. Maybe Southgate should not have been surprised.
One of them, Kyle Walker, said after the last World Cup that he didn’t really like playing in that position. Another, Eric Dier, only recently won his battle at Tottenham to be recognised as a centre half rather than a midfielder. And the final one, Harry Maguire, has endured such a difficult start to the season on and off the pitch at United that it was a surprise to see him preferred to Michael Keane or Conor Coady, both of whom did so well against Wales last Thursday.
Nevertheless, three against one should not have been a fair fight. They should have been able to deal with Lukaku. They should have had a plan at least, some indication that they had thought about this.
The Belgian is, after all, the same player he was during those years in England. Quick, strong and able to finish when the ball is played in front of him, but far from unstoppable.
Lukaku’s great weakness was always that he was easy to read; rarely a player to surprise anybody. He is a confidence player, too. Not the hardest to combat mentally. Yet here at Wembley, the 27-year-old was given all the time he wanted to dictate the way the game was played.
With any kind of fortune or better finishing, Belgium could have been out of sight early on. It is reasonable to say this was not, for example, the best night visiting forward Yannick
Carrasco has ever had. That it was England who prevailed, though, was down to their admirable improvement and that bodes well.
In the second period, England’s back three played higher up the pitch and made Lukaku think more when he had the ball or was about to join the play.
No centre forward in the world has ever scored regularly when made to play facing the wrong way and this was Lukaku’s predicament as England imposed themselves.
Confidence is everything in sport and, as this game wore on, collective belief grew across the England back line. It was a strange defensive selection by Southgate. For example, Jordan Pickford was extremely fortunate to get his place back from Nick Pope in goal.
But the England coach seems determined to try just about every combination possible before settling on his team for next summer’s European Championship.
It still feels as though Maguire and Liverpool’s Joe Gomez are his strongest defensive pairing and, if it is to be a back-three from now on, Keane’s improved form at Everton perhaps puts him in pole position for the final spot.
Whoever the personnel, England will have to be braver and more switched on for the whole game than they were here.
Half a match — half a performance — will only get the job done half of the time.