It was a defeat to Iceland that ended a dismal Euros campaign to essentially start the Gareth Southgate era and… well, you can fill in the rest. The manager must concentrate on filling in the many gaps in this surprisingly callow team before the Euro 2024 first game against Serbia on Sunday week, and maybe a bit more. A strange history was made with the 1-0 defeat to Iceland at Wembley on Friday, that doesn’t necessarily augur that well for the month ahead. England lost the last game before a full tournament for just the second time in their history, and the first since 1954.
That was a famous 7-1 defeat to Hungary, which illustrates just what a different era it was. The very fact that many victorious send-offs since produced some bad tournaments means that little enough should be read into such results, and it’s not like there will be wails of protest in the manner we’ve seen in the past.
There were some boos, though, and they accompany what is a genuine question for Southgate ahead of what is presumed to be his last campaign.
England have commonly been seen as maybe the favourites for Euro 2024 due to the way a deep squad has grown in talent and experience over eight years. Now, just as they’re at the brink, Southgate has stripped away so many of those stalwarts to introduce a lot of relatively untried players who have never played together before.
While this won’t be the best XI for that opening game against Serbia, it still featured eight of the likely starters.
They had none of the obvious connections that recent sides have had, especially in tournaments. It really did look like a group of strangers thrown together, which was perhaps why an individualist like Cole Palmer was one of the few bright spots.
It certainly wasn’t a performance to reflect Southgate’s near-breathless excitement about the youth and vibrancy of the squad on Thursday. Much of the play was actually really uninspiring, with some rank bad stuff.
The problems weren’t only in attack, though. That defence looks easy to get at, without much protection.
Southgate is going to have to think a lot more about its make-up, as well as what’s in front of it. England certainly lacked the power of Jude Bellingham.
It was almost stunning how easily Iceland just worked their way through Southgate’s structure. The move looked sleek, but largely because there was so much space in which to do so. Hakon Arnar Haraldsson played the ball through the massive gaps for Jon Dagur Thorsteinsson, before Thorsteinsson played it through the massive gap between Aaron Ramsdale’s arms.
The goalkeeper was visibly cursing himself. He was still one of a few stand-ins that didn’t have their best night.
England’s lack of coherence going forward was even more striking. Unable to properly build moves with the automatisms that England have become accustomed to, the attack increasingly looked to one-off pieces of innovation. That was precisely the source of the one proper attack in the first half. One of the most common scenes in the game was Palmer rolling the ball under his feet just outside the Iceland box and, on 29 minutes, he suddenly went from such languid play to one of the most sublime balls this side will produce. A clipped ball was played in front of the Iceland defence for the sort of opportunity that Harry Kane usually finishes with ease. The ball instead bounced off his shin and went over.
Palmer himself could have done better with a one-on-one in the second half, but the angle was narrower than it looked. He dragged it wide, which was where Iceland often forced England.
It meant Anthony Gordon was on the ball almost as much as Palmer, but it took him a while to get into the game. There was a lot of pace but little sharpness to the play.
Southgate made more changes, bringing on the familiar talents of Bukayo Saka and Trent Alexander-Arnold, but also some of the newer call-ups in Ivan Toney and Eberechi Eze.
It didn’t change much. Iceland still had the best chance, another break-away seeing Thorsteinsson this time. England never got so close. There was actually an extended period when they were just hacking the ball clear, and then hoofing it up. It led to one opportunity that just bounced wide, but that was it. There was no grand-stand finish, and certainly nothing approaching a send-off.
This didn’t feel like a team being saluted off to go and win a first tournament in 58 years. They were instead literally booed to Germany.
That is over the top, and shouldn’t mean much. It is still another strange piece of history, for what is suddenly a more uncertain month ahead.
