Gareth Southgate has been accused of repeating a Sven-Goran Eriksson mistake in light of England’s dreadful 1-1 draw with Denmark.
The Three Lions turned in their worst major tournament display since the humiliating defeat to Iceland at Euro 2016 as they mustered a barely-deserved point in Frankfurt. Southgate stuck with the XI which started well but then tailed off badly in the 1-0 victory over Serbia.
Phil Foden and Trent Alexander-Arnold were again crammed into the side in unfamiliar positions, with Southgate bizarrely admitting deploying the latter in midfield was an “experiment”. The England boss stands accused of picking the best players rather than the best team.
The same criticism was regularly levelled at Eriksson, who failed to get the team beyond the quarter-finals in three major tournaments in the 2000s. The Swede was scrutinised for constantly playing Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard together in midfield while another star middleman, Paul Scholes, was often lumped out on the left.
Pundit and former Manchester City defender Micah Richards reckons the star-studded teams looks unbalanced. He told Gary Lineker on The Rest Is Football podcast after the game: “It’s frustrating because there are so many good players.
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“Do you have too much when you’ve got so many good players? Does it make it more difficult? I think Gareth, at the moment, is trying to get the best-rated players on the pitch, which is not necessarily best for the balance of the team.
“He’s playing Foden, he’s playing Trent, and we all called for them to be playing. We need a play in a system that suits them [the team] higher up the pitch.”
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Sven-Goran Eriksson was often accused of shoehorning players into the XI (AFP via Getty Images)England were booed off by fans and Southgate admitted he and the players must take the criticism on the chin. He said: “Look, I think we have to accept this is the environment we’re in. The environment of winning on the biggest possible stage.
“If we don’t hit the level, if I don’t hit the level that’s needed, then we have to accept what comes our way. We have to find the best way to solve that.
“Of course we need the fans, you know we need the fans, but I have to say they’ve been brilliant, absolutely brilliant in the stadiums. And I can completely understand their frustration with the way that we played, but what I would say is these boys aren’t lacking effort at the moment.
“It’s not a case that they’re not trying but we’ve got to find a better way of playing, we’ve got to find more quality in what we’re doing. I don’t think people would look at them and say ‘they don’t care’. If anything at the moment we care too much and we’ve got to find a way of getting that right balance.”
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