It was two years ago on Wednesday that Argentina won the World Cup. England had gone out to France in the quarter-finals and, beyond the usual kneejerk attacks on Gareth Southgate, there was a sense of general optimism. They had lost in a 50-50 game, beaten in the marginal details, and the squad looked young and fresh. When had we last seen an England attack so bristling with talent, as a front three of Bukayo Saka, Harry Kane and Phil Foden demonstrated, with Raheem Sterling, Jack Grealish and Marcus Rashford on the bench to replace them?
How quickly the world of football changes. Grealish is an intermittent presence at a glitching Manchester City. Sterling, chewed up by the Great Disruption at Chelsea, has vanished on his loan at Arsenal. But nobody perhaps has suffered a more striking decline than Rashford. He’d scored off the bench against Iran and got two against Wales on his only World Cup start in Qatar. He returned from the tournament in the form of his life. He scored eight goals in his next seven appearances. In total that season, he scored 30 goals for Manchester United.
