England have had an underwhelming Euro 2020 campaign so far. They barely scraped through against Croatia with a 1-0 win and struggled against Scotland all game in their second match of the competition. The lack of a cutting edge forward who can take on and engage two-three defenders while creating chances worked against England although manager Gareth Southgate did have two extremely useful talents in Jadon Sancho and Jack Grealish on the bench.
There were plenty of calls for Grealish to come off the bench in Friday’s goalless stalemate with arch-rivals Scotland. England particularly struggled with lack of creativity on the left flank where Sterling started.
One of the brightest and most sought-after talents in the world Jadon Sancho is also yet to see a single minute of action in the European Championship. His Borussia Dortmund teammate and much-acclaimed teenager Jude Bellingham was only a late substitute in the first game whereas Arsenal’s prodigious youngster Bukayo Saka also hasn’t seen any opportunities in the ongoing competition.
When specifically asked about Sancho potentially being involved in their next match against Czech Republic, Southgate replied:
We’ve got some explosive options and a lot of them are young players and experiencing a big tournament for the first time. So as a coaching staff we are realistic about our expectations of them as individuals. Jadon is in that mix. He’s trained well the last few days and of course we have got those options and those decisions to make.
The form of Harry Kane who has led the forward line for England is also a major cause of concern. The Premier League Golden Boot winner this season hasn’t seen any chances come his way and has been barely involved in England’s plays.
Southgate is of the opinion that not having the full squad for their two warm-up matches ahead of Euro 2020 has impacted their collective chemistry on the pitch. Players like Sterling, Phil Foden and Mason Mount were given extra days off because of their involvement in the Champions League final. That was also the case for Manchester United’s Marcus Rashford and Luke Shaw, who were involved in the Europa League final.
I think a lot of those players we didn’t have for the friendlies, so the chemistry is something we didn’t have a lot of opportunity to work on.
Southgate added.
We’ve got to just keep working on that. We know there are some very good players in there, we know they can perform better than they did (against Scotland) and we’ve got to help them to find that level. The important thing is that everyone gets behind the team and the players and they’re going to need to feel that support and to feel that warmth.
Southgate concluded.
