Morning all.
So it’s a Spain versus Argentina World Cup final on Sunday after England were beaten 2-1 last night. The first half was feisty, but low on quality in general. There were lots of fouls, a couple of yellow cards, but nothing much to talk about in terms of goalscoring chances. It felt like Argentina were trying to get the game to go one way, especially via Diego Simeone’s niggly little dust-devil son, but England were well prepared and didn’t let that happen.
Ten minutes into the second half and England went ahead. Declan Rice was involved, pushing high up the pitch to lay off a clearance into the path of Morgan Rogers, whose excellent cross found Anthony Gordon at the back post. The Argentina defender was caught napping as the now Barcelona man (I still find that a bit weird), tucked it away first time.
After that, however, England sat back and gave all the momentum to the opposition. I think we can all understand that period after you score where, consciously or otherwise, you look to protect the lead. It’s happened at Arsenal more than once, and every time he’s been asked about it, Mikel Arteta insists it’s not a deliberate instruction. This was something else though, and it was clear they had a big problem on their hands.
Luckily for managers at this World Cup, there’s a chance to sort things out with the ad-breaks. An unnatural pause in the game to fix what’s wrong, either with substitutions or a tactical shift. Unluckily for England, Thomas Tuchel produced something of a disaster-class, choosing to lean into protecting a one goal lead against a team who, while not replete with the highest quality, still have the best player to ever play the game at their disposal. I was going to say ‘running the show’, but Lionel Messi doesn’t really run anymore at 39 years of age.
He took Gordon off and put Ezri Konsa on, then later took off Rice and Reese James for Dan Burn and Nico O’Reilly. It’s one thing to defend a lead when you have a back four like Arsenal and then you bring on another very good defender to bolster the ranks, but with all due respect to the players he used, he made his team weaker and it was a high risk gamble. Argentina weren’t so much knocking on the door as hammering on it, and after hitting the post twice and missing a glorious header at the back post, they equalised.
Messi laid the ball off after a short corner, as an Arsenal fan I want to see Elliot Anderson display the same lack of defensive discipline for Man City next season as he got drawn towards the ball like an 8 year old in the playground, and Enzo Fernandez had way too much time to fire home a shot to make it 1-1. Jude Bellingham saw the danger and tried to close him down, but the strike was too good, and Jordan Pickford’s poor positioning contributed too (to Bellingham’s obvious frustration).
It was a game that was only going to go one way after that. Tuchel had gone all in on holding the 1-0, and England were rattled by the goal, so it was little surprise Argentina found a winner. Messi produced a fantastic cross, again the defending was really poor to give him that space, and Lautaro Martinez headed home from close range after the ball skimmed over the head of John Stones.
A couple of attacking subs were way too little, way too late, and the stats were damning. After going 1-0 up, England had just 12.5% possession between Gordon scoring and Argentina going ahead, which is astonishing at this level. Managers often get things wrong, but very rarely do you see them get it as wrong as that. Some of it is on the players, of course, but ultimately Tuchel made the decisions, had the chance to change something at the ad-break, but doubled down on his misguided belief England had the defensive quality to hold out.
It’s one thing to lose knowing you’ve played well but been beaten by the better team, but to essentially hand every bit of momentum to the opposition and fail to reverse that in any way will be very disappointing. I think England had way more quality than they showed last night, so that will sting. What else? The fact Bukayo Saka wasn’t used at all tells us something about where he is right now, and that’s very worrying in terms of his fitness for the start of the new season. And, while it’s not exactly the same, I feel like England have indulged Harry Kane in a similar way to Portugal and Cristiano Ronaldo. When England were under the cosh in that second period, they needed some kind of outlet, and he decided to play as an auxiliary centre-half half the time. Get out, and give your team something.
Anyway, I think the knives will be out among the English press for Tuchel who, generally speaking, has managed England well in this tournament, but last night was a guidebook on what not to do and how not to do it. The final on Sunday will be fascinating, I’m all in on Spain and the Arsenal boys there to win it, so let’s see how it goes.
England now face a ‘Bronze Final’, the pathetically renamed third/fourth place play-off game, but for Saka and Rice in particular, that’s a game I want to see them strictly as observers rather than participants. They need a rest, a holiday and, I imagine, significant medical attention/rehab with the new season just over a month away.
Speaking of which, there’s not especially good news about William Saliba, with L’Equipe reporting he could be out of action if he has surgery on his back problem. It has sounded like a bad one throughout the end of our season and this World Cup, but now that it’s all over when a player says he’s unable to bear the pain and that his back is ‘dead’, you know the full truth is beginning to emerge. We’ll have to wait and see how this one pans out, but if it’s a while before we see Saliba in red and white, it wouldn’t be at all surprising.
Right, I’ll leave it there for this morning, we’ll have an Arsecast for you in a little bit so stand by for that.
Have a good one in the meantime.
