Qatar 20222: Unrecognizable, lacklustre, and sluggish England display will give Wales hope

When Gareth Southgate named an unchanged side on Friday , it was the first time that he had done so since the semi-final of the World Cup against Croatia in Russia four years ago. 

The unchanged side was a reflection of England’s excellent start against Iran four days earlier. It didn’t seem wholly unreasonable, then, to expect a performance of similar pace, confidence and accuracy. Yes, different opposition, better. But something reasonably close.

Within the space of four days, though, England have gone from the sublime to the unrecognisable. The turnaround is ridiculous. After two matches of their World Cup campaign, England have lost their identity. Has the team that stumbled through last summer suddenly returned?

Thus does the spotlight return inevitably to Southgate. That is how it goes. Even when you send out exactly the same 11 players in exactly the same formation.

Pretty much every decision that Southgate made for England’s opening game against Iran on Monday worked out perfectly. His formation favoured England’s strength and gave them more options in attack. His substitutions then kept the impetus and the scoreline ticking over.

Suddenly Southgate was top of the class. That itself was a nifty move because when he arrived here in Qatar, he was denigrated in many quarters as the class dunce. That is not an uncommon journey for England managers, from turnip-head to sorcerer and back again in the space of a few noisy days.

 “I’m sure there’ll be a lot of noise,” Southgate said after this game. He could probably hear the oncoming din from the half-time break. “This is the tournament of external noise.” So it has been. But the noise will be more specific now.

So, after 0-0 against the United States, happy to escape with a goalless draw, no second-half shots on goal until the 87th minute, where is he now? Not so clever any more.

In the 88th minute, England broke out on the counterattack. The immediate sense of danger was quelled, though, by two significant elements: the fact that it was Harry Maguire on the ball and that there was barely anyone running alongside him in support. Eventually he flicked a pass for Harry Kane to chase on the left wing, but Kane doesn’t chase like that, not on a dodgy ankle anyway. So that didn’t look so clever either.

On Thursday afternoon, in the centre of Doha, the American coach and captain had given their pre-match press conference.

The respect that they showed England was notable; the Premier League was presented as green and pleasant land. It seemed as if they were privileged to be accorded the fixture.

Their words were certainly not reflected on the field the following day. England had a bright spell for 10 to 15 minutes in the middle of that first half.

Yup, if you watched the game, you’ve probably already forgotten that because the story of the first half was all about the US getting first a toehold and then increasingly a proper grip on the game. By half-time, they were the better team and certainly had the better chances.

England were cautious and conservative with their movement of the ball, and this then became ponderous, too slow to move the ball forward, too patient with the one-two of passes between John Stones and Maguire.

Surely they didn’t underestimate the way that the Americans would run at them?

By half-time, the US midfield trio were finding space between the England defence and midfield. Jude Bellingham couldn’t get a foothold, but that was probably because of the pressure that the opposition put on him.

If you target Bellingham like that, does there suddenly become too much work for Declan Rice to do here? And there was a real happy place for the US down the England left flank. That was where all the pain was coming from.

The camera then pans back to Southgate. How could he affect the performance? Can you effect change? How can you have an impact on the performance on the pitch from your directives from the side of it? How would half-time alter their game?

The answer is that Southgate could not have an impact on the performance. England were unchanged after half-time; more significantly, that second half started the way the first half had finished.

It was only in the 69th minute that Southgate used his subs’ bench. The impact that Jack Grealish made suggested that he should have been brought on earlier.

Here, then, recommences the referendum on the England manager. Is it OK to have one average performance in a tournament? (Answer: not, generally, in these parts). Is he failing a group of quality players? Or is it just that those players failed themselves? Southgate, himself, noted how disappointed they all were in the dressing room afterwards.

But we have to pause here. Which of his big decisions have backfired here? Certainly not the (highly controversial) decision to pick Maguire.

Southgate had said: “We are good at talking highly of ourselves as a nation on the basis of little evidence.” Maybe we got ahead of ourselves on Monday. Maybe we shouldn’t get too far behind today. England are somewhere in the middle, but we still don’t know where.