AFC Bournemouth
AFC Bournemouth legend Steve Fletcher thinks England have been comfortable but not convincing in their opening two games at the European Championship.
Gareth Southgate’s team followed up their narrow 1-0 win over Croatia on Sunday with a rather tepid showing in a 0-0 draw against Scotland on Friday.
Fletcher, writing his fourth Euro 2020 column for afcb.co.uk, felt England had set up to avoid defeat rather than to go all out for a victory which would have secured their qualification.
The stalemate left the Three Lions level on four points with Group D leaders Czech Republic, while Scotland and Croatia have a point apiece.
England meet Czech Republic at Wembley in their final group game on Tuesday, while Scotland face Croatia, both games kicking off at 8pm.
Cherries’ appearance record holder Fletcher, whose grandfather Jack Howe was capped by England in the 1940s, will be penning his opinions for afcb.co.uk throughout the tournament.
I thought England set themselves out not to be beaten and Scotland tried to win the game more than we did.
The second game is always a tough one, especially when you have won the first one.
On most occasions, four points gets you through the group and I’m sure that was reflected in the way we set up.
In Luke Shaw and Reece James, we had attacking full-backs who never really got forward and, when they did, they turned back and kept possession.
They got high up the pitch but never really looked to get in behind. James turned back most of the time and played it safe and although Shaw tried to get up and down, it just didn’t happen.
We controlled the game at times but without really hurting them in any way and we went sideways a lot.
We were there not to be beaten and it was another point on the board.
We all wanted blood, guts and thunder but maybe we saw more of that from Scotland than we did from us.
Scotland were fantastic to a man. They threw themselves at everything and worked their socks off.
They knew they would have to compete and they did. It’s not about individuals, it’s about the team and it was a great all-round team effort from them.
I would like to have seen Jack Grealish start, as I said in my last column. I think we missed his creativity.
And when he eventually came on midway through the second half, I thought he was too wide.
He needed to play more centrally because he can draw players to him. If he’d done that, he would have been more effective. He seemed to be wasted on the wing.
Up front, we can all see that Harry Kane isn’t firing. He was injured before the tournament started and we can see he’s not match fit.
He’s missing that little bit of spark. But then again, you have to take your hat off to the Scotland defence. I thought Grant Hanley marshalled him really well and had the better of him.
We saw a lot of Hanley with Norwich last season and he showed he’s more than capable of playing in the Premier League and holding his own. He was up against one of the best strikers in the world.
I just felt Scotland had more passion than us. They needed a positive result and a draw was probably good enough for us going into the last group game.
If this had been the first fixture of the group, I think we might have seen a different approach from England.
Sometimes, you have to hold up your hand and praise the opposition.
I said Scotland wouldn’t try to go toe to toe with us and would try to counter attack and that’s what they did.
They dropped in and made it difficult for us to penetrate. They worked hard, their wide men and strikers tracked back and their full-backs were up and down all game.
From their perspective, it was a great performance. From ours, it was a lethargic display.
I think we’re going to qualify but we still haven’t got out of second gear and are certainly going to have to up our game.
We’ve been comfortable in our first two group games but we haven’t given the supporters anything to get too excited about just yet and that is going to need to change.
