England 2 – 1 DR Congo – Match Analysis

England stuttered to a 2 – 1 victory over DR Congo to seal a tie in the round of 16 against Mexico.

England were far from convincing both in terms of performance and result and will have to play much better if they are to progress to the latter stages of the tournament.

Captain Kane came to the rescue with two goals as a 1 – 0 deficit was overturned. His second goal in particular was a great touch and finish after a good pass from Gordon.

The goal we conceded is certainly a worry. Defensively we have been poor all tournament and this time we were caught out.

Spence and Madueke seem to have received the brunt of the social media criticism for their parts in the goal. There is an argument Madueke should have tracked and marked Spence’s man as he came in to cover but I’m having none of that.

Spence should have certainly done better when challenging for the ball, but he had to leave the man he should have been marking to come and take the man that one of the centre halves should have been marking. Both centre halves however were in complete no mans land. Too far over to left and too far forward. The bulk of the blame for the goal must go to Konsa and Guehi.

Pickford should have saved the shot, no ifs, no buts, he should have saved it despite what Joe Hart, head of the goalkeepers’ union, says. I am loathed to criticise Pickford as he has been excellent for England in every tournament he has played in barring this one.

So far this tournament he has been rash and chaotic, his decision making when coming off his line has been poor and now, he is conceding goals he should save. I hope we are not seeing the decline of Pickford, who in my opinion has been the best England goalkeeper since I began watching England from the 1990 World Cup onwards.

And I am not saying I think he is a better goalkeeper than David Seaman for example because I don’t think he is. But, in an England shirt he has acquitted himself better than Seaman et al, so the last thing I’d want to see is him blot is copy book during this World Cup.

The defence is a massive worry, not just the back four but how we defend as a team. We are poor in transition; there seems to be gaps in midfield and the gap between defence and midfield at times is far too big. We don’t seem to be able to live with teams who counterattack us in terms of speed and fitness.

Right back certainly is a problem. I keep hearing it’s only been a problem since James got injured but I can assure you that it was a problem when James was playing as he has been nothing short of awful when he has played so far this tournament.

Rice, who I think has been pretty poor midfield, played well when he moved to right back, by far the best right back performance by any England player so far. Perhaps he is the solution there.

That would allow Bellingham to play deeper where he is much better. He can still get forward and get on the end of chances as the Panama game showed. Bellingham was born to be a box-to-box midfielder, he has never seen a number ten.

This would also free up the number ten slot for Eze who looked good when he came on, with Rogers as an alternative if that isn’t working.

Whoever starts out wide seems to be poor with their replacements coming on and improving things and last night was no different with Gordon creating the goals.

Up top, Kane scored both goals to get England out of trouble. There only seems to be him or Bellingham stepping up at the moment and others will need to chip in if we are to continue to progress.

Interestingly enough, I heard a bit of debate regarding Kane’s performance on Talk Sport when I drove into work this morning.

The right opinion being that he is a striker who has scored two goals, so he has done his job. There was, however, criticism of his overall performance and Agbonlahor suggesting that he wants more from him and that just scoring two goals isn’t enough. Also, in the WhatsApp group there were a few saying to take him off just before he hit the back of the net.

Now, the main thing you want from your striker is to be scoring goals and he has done that. I do agree that if you forget about his goals for a minute that his all-round game hasn’t been brilliant in any of the games, but I think that is more to do with how the team is playing.

Strikers rely on service. We as a team provide very little service to Kane with the way we play, passing sideways and backwards and left to right and back again. We rarely look to feed it into him.

There are also many times when we get the ball out wide with ample time and space to cross and simply don’t put the ball into the box because the ball is on the wingers’ wrong foot. And for someone who apparently is never in the box, Kane is almost always there waiting for a cross that never arrives. I am truly amazed that he has scored as many goals as he has with how poor the service is into him.

What also amazes me is every single game pundits and fans criticise him for dropping deep. He always drops deep, he always has, he always will, that is the way he plays. For me at times he hasn’t done it often enough this tournament.

As for the suggestion in the WhatsApp chat to take him, well we could be on our way home now if that had happened. You can never take him off when you need a goal because he is the most likely source. I do think there are times when we should stick a second striker on. I would love to see him and Watkins play together. I believe they would work well together, and Watkins brings the running in behind option.

There was a suggestion from Agbonlahor that with Kanes’ current level of performance that there is no way he would score against any of the big hitters. That may be the case, but it is down to the way the team plays and the poor service he gets. When you have a world class goal scorer it is down to the manager to set the team up to bring the best out of him and he has so far failed to do that. It shows Kanes’ class that he has managed to score five goals playing in this team.

Changes in personnel and style are certainly needed for Mexico. The more I watch this England team, the more I doubt the appointment of Tuchel. But you’ve got to be in it to win it and we are still there. I am hoping Tuchel makes me eat my words, but I have seen no evidence suggest we will be in it for much longer playing as we are.

COME ON ENGLAND