A crisis point in the late Gareth Southgate era: a team stumbling through the group stages in need of inspiration and yet getting worse, with that strong sense they will be easy prey for the first big opponent they meet. First it is Slovenia on Tuesday with an urgent requirement for to win the group, although in the interim what Southgate thought were his solutions are now having to be unpicked. He faces dismantling the midfield with serious concerns that neither nor might be the elusive third man.
That he could even go to the very youngest player in the squad, , the 20-year-old with 16 Premier League appearances to his name, demonstrates how volatile the situation might be. It may even be the right answer – the issue is that no one, not least Southgate, can say for sure. Some teams develop over the course of a tournament, a happy confluence of form, availability, circumstance.
All have developed in , and the weeks preceding this, have been problems. Afterwards, Southgate presented like a man who was coming to terms with the impossibility of escape from a fate that was just too great. He talked about “walking towards the challenge”, which is the kind of phrase which may hint at a dark state of mind or he may have just listened to one too many self-improvement podcasts.
Either way it felt end of days, and while England should emerge from Group C, after eight years and three previous tournaments, Southgate is finally stuck in that bear trap that took almost all his predec.
