As Gareth Southgate observed on Friday, the noise around his England team does “seem extremely loud” and he did not mean it in a positive way. This is what happens when any mis-steps are taken and there was certainly one in the 1-0 defeat to Hungary in Budapest last Saturday.
There would be further moaning three days later when England drew 1-1 in Germany, based on the disjointed nature of the overall performance rather than the encouraging late fightback. What Southgate needed here – apart from a win – was for his players to show greater cohesion for longer periods, to take better care of the ball and ask questions of an experimental Italy team; to pull them out of shape.
