UNLESS a ridiculous turn of events transpire at the Ahmad bin Ali Stadium on Tuesday evening England have already guaranteed passage to the last 16, so with this in mind will Gareth Southgate bow to public pressure and start with Phil Foden against Wales?
That feels unlikely given the England boss’ comments this week concerning the brilliant but overlooked young talent, with Southgate essentially discounting the prospect of Foden edging out Sterling or Saka for a wide attacking spot at this World Cup, then outright dismissing the notion of England’s most technically gifted midfielder since Paul Gascoigne playing in midfield. The number 8 role was not, Southgate stated, a position the player was used to inhabiting for his club.
It was a claim that failed to bear up to any sort of scrutiny, because Southgate has previously been fine with deploying personnel in unfamiliar roles – Trippier at left-back and Rashford in recent games on the right spring immediately to mind – while the 22-year-old has indeed played centre-mid and attacking-mid for Manchester City on numerous occasions, 49 times to be precise under Pep Guardiola.
What’s more, he’s been superb centrally infinitely more times than he’s disappointed, full of energy and adventure; a dervish of frenetic pressing and clever passing. A highly renowned problem-solver, Philip Walter Foden was exactly the kind of creative needed to lift a drab encounter last Friday and was exactly the player USMNT most feared would undo their game-plan. More so, he is a rare jewel who any other team in Qatar would exhibit as their centrepiece.
Foden created as many chances against the USA as Mount, Kane and Sterling combined.
Foden was sat on the bench for the entire game. pic.twitter.com/8O5aFOclgG
— ESPN UK (@ESPNUK) November 26, 2022
Instead, however, it will probably be Mason Mount lining up against the Welsh, a perfectly decent number 8 for sure, one who is routinely neat in possession and who possesses a commendable work-ethic. Yet, as a wag on social media put it, such attributes only make the Chelsea star the best defensive attacking midfielder around because elsewhere, where is the imagination or ambition, in recent times at least? A single goal and a solitary assist in his last 12 international outings tells its own story.
Not that Mount warrants being scapegoated for a painfully passive England showing in their second group game, that ensures that work is still needed against Wales so as to secure top spot.
With USA overall the better side, Saka laboured and Sterling was ineffective. Bellingham – so bright on his World Cup debut four days before – was inordinately ordinary, a baby grand piano in need of a fine tune. And Mount, of course, should not be excused. He ran a lot. As Foden would have but still, he ran a lot. That’s the best that can be said.
This was a team completely unrecognizable from the one who tore into Iran, on the front foot throughout and carving out chances seemingly at will. Worse yet, this was a team that reverted to its means, playing for percentages and set-pieces, and devoid of ideas even when those ideas naturally presented themselves. It was, frankly, after Iran, the worst anti-climax since the Game of Thrones finale.
A lot therefore rides on this game for England, more than the various permutations that might see them face Holland, Ecuador or Senegal in the last 16.
Was last Friday an outlier, from a cluster of stodgy performances that go all the way back to last spring? Take their opening pummeling of Iran out of the equation and England have failed to score in five of their last seven games and there are no wins in that number.
Or was their goalless stalemate a strategic nullification of a main group rival? If so, it worked. It may have bored us silly, and it absolutely, and unnecessarily, deflated a lot of optimism and momentum, but it worked.
Alas, any definitive answers may elude us for the time being, and that’s because whichever incarnation of Gareth Southgate’s England turns up in Al Rayyan, they will almost certainly have the beating of a beaten Wales.
It took the Red Dragons 64 years to reach a second World Cup and this figure was trumpeted often in the build up to their tournament. Unfortunately, the far more pertinent stat was that their three best players – Gareth Bale, Aaron Ramsey and Joe Allen – had only managed four club starts combined since mid-September.
The moment Gareth Bale scored Wales' first World Cup goal in 64 years 🙌#BBCWorldCup #FIFAWorldCup https://t.co/v5exUkwRNG
— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) November 21, 2022
With Bale all-but-anonymous in open play, Ramsey much too easily by-passed in midfield, and Allen coming on late against Iran to make two costly mistakes, it does feel like Rob Page’s sentimental decision to play his half-fit superstars has proven to be a commendable one, but disastrous.
Wales were nervy in the extreme when opening their World Cup account but to their credit ultimately turned it around against USMNT, showing the fight and urgency that was always going to be needed from them. Last Friday morning however, they made a decidedly average Team Melli look like world-beaters, disjointed all over the park and notably off the pace.
All that has been so good and invigorating about Wales in recent times – their collective spirit that relies on Bale and co for that sprinkling of magic – was entirely absent and presently they are carrying too any passengers in a side that cannot afford to have even one.
Page’s best approach ahead of this neighbourly dispute, played out thousands of miles from home, is to make this game an all-British, physical ‘derby’ and to that end surely Kieffer Moore starts and perhaps too Daniel James, in order to get some greater energy around Bale.
It’s in midfield though where you worry for them, with Ethan Ampado routinely exposed and Ramsey focusing on negotiating his fitness. It’s a midfield in which a player such as Phil Foden could cause some serious damage. Instead, Mount will be solid. A perfectly decent number 8.
