If you can't be good, be lucky; England scramble into the quarters
Abysmal for 94 minutes against Slovakia, Gareth Southgate's team used up an indeterminate number of lives to get level and then scramble through.
Somehow or other, England are in the quarter-finals of the European Championships, and amid the sound of journalists tearing up their copy at the end of a dramatic early evening in Gelsenkirchen, no-one quite knows how.
Because make no mistake about it, for 94 minutes they were every inch as bad as they had been for most of the previous three matches and that if fortune had anything to do with all this, England didn’t deserve their late, late equalising goal. It was their first shot on target of the night, although Declan Rice had hit the post with ten minutes to play.
And when it came, it was if nothing else dramatic; Kyle Walker’s long throw flicked on by Marc Guehi for the hitherto anonymous Jude Bellingham to overhead kick everybody a reminder of why you don’t substitute one of the best young footballers on the planet because he’s had a couple of quiet games.
It was the sort of goal that makes you snort with near-derisive laughter. This match had carried all the hallmarks of being one of those nights when England turn into the clown princes of international football, stumbling around blindfolded until they eventually walk into a rake or two. The two very early yellow cards felt like ravens leaving the tower, a premonition of a possible sending off, tabloid vilification and death threats to come.
There was another moment ten minutes into the second half, when a laughably complacent John Stones pass to no-one or nothing in particular was picked up by David Strelec, who lobbed Jordan Pickford from a couple of yards inside the England half only to see the ball drop narrowly wide. But these moments didn’t amount to anything, and England survived into extra-time.
We might wonder whether the manager has stumbled upon a formation that can get them through their next game against Switzerland. They went a goal down after a blancmange-like England left was carved open for Ivan Schrantz to score midway through the first half. Despite the absolute lack of evidence that his formation was working, Southgate made only one change before the closing minutes, bringing on Cole Palmer for an injured Kieran Trippier midway through the second half, which meant Bukayo Saka moving by necessity to left-back.
The improvement in this formation was slow, but it came. Rice’s shot thudded out off the upright. Kane headed narrowly wide. And with the passing minutes changes finally came. Eberechi Eze replaced Kobbie Mainoo. And with ninety seconds to play, in a move which felt like the last roll of a die that Gareth Southgate might ever have taken as the England manager, Phil Foden was replaced by Ivan Toney, a replacement which felt as nonsensical as did futile.
Ninety seconds into extra-time, a free-kick on the right. Palmer swung the ball over, Martin Dubravka punched clear. Eze drove the ball into the ground, Toney headed it across the goal and Kane scored from close range. The substitutes had combined—not entirely by intention, but we’ll let that slide for now—to hand a chance to Kane that the captain was never likely to miss. Toney’s performance—he almost scored himself in the last minute of extra-time—warrants a greater role for him against Switzerland, but to do so may require Mister Gawuff to tinker with the formation that isn’t really working.
And with the second goal, his team fell back into a familiar trap. As if by muscle memory, they started defending too deeply again, inviting Slovakia to go at them. But on this occasion, Slovakia didn’t have enough to seriously threaten a way back into the game and a potential penalty shoot-out. If you can’t be good, be lucky, I guess. And it’s certainly fair to say that England were very lucky indeed.
The quarter-final against Switzerland is an intriguing prospect, because for all that many will look at them and dismiss them as easily beatable opponents, despite the very evidence of our own eyes. They were impressive against Germany and Hungary in the group stages, and hit a new level altogether with their 2-0 win against Italy. If England want something to feel optimistic about, then they might remind themselves that they could only manage a 1-1 draw against Scotland. But that was a long time ago.
Slovakia, perhaps, were a little too conservative with their one-goal lead once they had it. They deserved that lead, and they’d have deserved to have won had they hung on for that last twenty seconds or so. But they didn’t.
It is fair and reasonable to say that sometimes winners have to dig those wins out from nowhere sometimes, that there can be nothing as satisfying as claiming late goals from a match which you’ve had to haul your way back into after playing badly for long periods. For the professional, pulling something out of the bag like that is a matter of pride. It is equally fair and reasonable to say that a win is a win is a win, and that if they’re through to the next round of the knockout stages then they’ve succeeded in the only metric that really counts for anything much.
But there is also a watching audience, and while that audience has no right to win, fans should be entitled to feel entertained. England failed that essential test again, tonight, and furthermore it’s not difficult to see how an already patchwork-looking defence could be exploited by more accomplished opposing attackers, or how a reliance on last-gasp moments like this is not a healthy position to be in, in the first place.
None of this has been resolved by events in Gelsenkirchen tonight. The Foden-Bellingham Axis isn’t working, and it is evident that Harry Kane would do better with someone running off him. Someone like Ivan Toney, for example. Yanno, the guy who was just off Kane, heading across for the winning goal to be scored. That guy. We can all only wonder whether Southgate will take the hints that are so blatantly in front of him. We all suspect that we already know the answer to that particular question.
They were just as poor as the first three group games. It's amazing how Southgate just blindly can't see the formation doesn't work, there is no balance on the left and we seem incapable of defending a lead in the opposition half, eat, sleep, repeat!