Gareth Southgate has been overly loyal to a ponderous player that has become a major issue for his team and needs to be weeded out
Most of the focus, post match, was on the hug. And in fairness, the hug was pretty funny. England will be happy enough with a forgettable night in Wroclaw: a point gained, the avoidance of injury, and a step closer to next summer’s low-carbon tour of Germany, the first Euros to be scheduled in a way that minimises rather than maximises travel, a mild correction after the Platini-led cheap-flight madness of Everywhere 2020.
There weren’t many highlights, or anything much to mark an evening characterised by a strange slackness at the heart of Gareth Southgate’s team. But the hug was one of them. It came just before Ukraine’s goal, product of a surgical counter-attack down the left. As Yukhym Konoplya crossed every England player seemed to be in state of flux, spinning and twirling, looking for traction.
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