‘As for poor old Harry, after all that social virtue signalling and captain’s pastoral care for his team-mates he has been left to carry the can...' Talk about a tell...
Date published: Tuesday 13th December 2022 11:55 -
‘The reality on this ice-cold morning after the two nights before of classically English celebration of defeat is that Gareth Southgate has failed now to capitalise on this nation’s three best opportunities to win a major football tournament since 1966 and all that. Then at Euro 2020 England beat actual Germany. And literally came within penalties of winning the whole tournament.
‘Yes, England played well and tried hard in Qatar on Saturday night. We could hardly expect anything less against opposition missing half-a-dozen key men, three world-class players among them. Didier Deschamps was deprived of Karim Benzema, Paul Pogba and N’Gono Kante. ‘As for the absence of Paul Pogba, there was no England midfield player to compare purely in terms of skill with the French diva but let’s suppose Bukayo Saka had been on the sick list. Minus him as well, England might not have gone so far as the last eight.’‘Dispassionate assessment of the progress they did make suggests, to begin with, that the six-goal blast off owed much to Iran’s minds being diverted onto political protest and the threats of being lashed to death when they returned home.
Powell then goes on a whistle-stop tour of the England team, deriding Jordan Pickford, Harry Maguire, Jude Bellingham, Jordan Henderson and Phil Foden before he gets to Harry Kane. And here we see the real problem for Birkin QC… He never played Conor Coady or Conor Gallagher either. Have they been ‘humiliated’ or does that only apply to Maddison? And we’re buggered if we can see how not playing one squad member across five games of football could be a mistake ‘before a ball was kicked in the desert’.
‘That limited severely England’s sorties along their right flank. And although it restricted the French prodigy it left England playing nine versus 10 across the rest of the pitch for most of the match.’ ‘So the cold truth for Southgate – as Eliza Doolittle might have said before she became My Fair Lady – ‘it’s the subs wots done ’em in.”
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