England were held to a 0-0 draw by Scotland and manager Gareth Southgate has come under heavy fire after the Three Lions lost a golden chance to secure a position in the knockout stages.
Gareth Southgate made a few changes to his starting line-up on Friday but when it came to making substitutions in the second half, he seemed clueless and according to pundit Ian Wright, the manager also made a series of errors.
Wright told ITV, as quoted by The Daily Mail: ‘I think it’s plain to see that he (Kane) doesn’t look at his best, let’s be fair. You look at the chances created, Reece James coming into the team, one of the best crossers from his position but hardly any crosses. Not enough balls into the last third for people to play.
‘What’s he taken Foden off for? There’s no way Phil Foden should be leaving the pitch today. It’s very disappointing to see.
‘You’ve got someone like Jadon Sancho on the bench, 16 goals and 20 assists doesn’t even get on when we need to create. We can talk about Harry Kane and the chances he could have had or how many touches he didn’t have, but at the same time did we really create enough?
‘We are supposed to be a team that’s one of the favourites to win but I was embarrassed today.’
Phil Foden was one of the better players on the pitch against Scotland and was undoubtedly the best attacker for England when he was replaced by Jack Grealish.
Grealish’s introduction was much-needed but instead of Foden, everyone thinks the manager should have taken off Harry Kane. Kane had another poor outing for England and we believe Gareth Southgate could not risk taking off his most prolific goalscorer.
In the end, Harry Kane was replaced by Marcus Rashford but still, Jadon Sancho was nowhere to be seen.
The manager explained why he decided to take off the Tottenham striker but maybe his 74th-minute decision came a bit too late.
Southgate said after the match, as per Reuters: “I felt we needed a few more runs in behind and Marcus would give us that energy,
“We have to base these decisions on what we see. We’ve got to be better and that starts with me. We didn’t have enough attempts at goal and need to look at that over the next few days.”
Raheem Sterling was another player who had a really subdued game on Friday and it’s time for Gareth Southgate to be brave and make the tough calls by dropping players like Kane and Sterling to the bench.
The fans and pundits have been urging the England boss to bring in players like Grealish and Sancho into the starting line-up and we should be seeing them in action against Czech Republic on Tuesday. If not then the Three Lions could be sinking down a rabbit hole really soon.
