It was another loss for England in the Nations League and that is five games where they are winless and they have only one goal, coming from a penalty. The starting line-up had five changes – from the last game – consisting of: Maguire, Dier, Rice, Sterling and Foden starting instead of, suspended, Stones, Bowen, Phillips, Gallagher and Guehi. I thought it was a strong squad; however, seeing Grealish play like that in the second half they should have started with him. The formation was not the best either.
Their defence let them down in the game as they were not good at marking and they were too open, giving the Italian players room to pass into and counterattack. Italy was fantastic at defending, they always closed England down whenever they came at them, and every player was back helping. Some work needs to be done with England’s defence as they have now conceded seven goals in five games.
The game was very back and forth throughout, and each team had a fair number of chances. However, England were forced to shoot outside the box – as they could not break Italy’s back line – instead of getting into the box and having easier chances on goal. If they tried pushing up and breaking the defence, as a team, they would have had more easier opportunities to put the ball in the back of the net. Italy was allowed too many shots in the box, and they were able to get one goal out of it.
Three players impressed me from England’s squad, and they were Grealish, Kane and Bellingham. Having these players in the team made them attack more because whenever one player had the ball the other two were pushing up and making runs. It did look very dangerous when those three were on the attack, but no one else was there to help them and nobody was in the box. This led to too much passing around the edge of the box (which I hate teams doing) and, eventually, getting the ball taken of them.
The passing was better from England, but they always hesitated whenever they received the ball making the pass harder than it should be. Before they receive the ball, they should look around them and see who is available. Italy was excellent at doing this and they always knew where every one of their teammates where and their passing was too quick, it was like watching hockey.
Italy played very dirty and were so annoying whenever they got tackled because they went down too easily and sometimes it looked like they dived. I just do not understand why they play like that.
Overall, both teams had an equal number of shots on target but only Italy were able to find the net. England started to switch on more after they conceded and bringing on Grealish really helped, but it was too late, and the game ended 1-0 to the home side.
The positives for England were that they looked much sharper in that game compared with the others; however, I do not think Southgate is the man to get us to the World Cup final.