WHEN selecting their squads, international managers are acutely aware that at least a couple of players will inevitably pull out due to injury. It’s one of the many crosses they have to bear.
On this occasion, as Gareth Southgate prepares his Three Lions for a real baptism of fire, kicking off their Euro 2024 qualifying campaign with a trip to Naples, it is Mason Mount and Marcus Rashford who have withdrawn, both of whom would have surely featured on Thursday evening.
Since making his England bow in 2019, Mason Mount has appeared in 35 of the 40 matches he’s been available for, and moreover is precisely the kind of neat and tidy possession-retainer Southgate leans on for such a testing fixture.
Marcus Rashford meanwhile scored three goals in 137 minutes in Qatar and has since fired 19 in 24 for Manchester United. Arguably he has been England’s most in-form and impactful player in recent months.
Both players therefore are seismic losses and with Southgate deciding not to replace either, that leaves him with a roster of 23 to face a nation England have failed to beat in a competitive game since 1997. Intriguingly, five of their last eight meetings have ended all-square though of course one of these was ultimately determined in the cruelest fashion via pens.
That Euro 2020 final at Wembley will naturally be brought to mind this week but of more pertinence is their narrow 1-0 loss in Milan in the Nations League last September, a game that saw England rack up a greater number of shots than their opponents but, mired in poor form at the time, were unable to pull the trigger. With more confidence in the ranks – a confidence that has been subsequently rediscovered from a vibrant World Cup – England would have won that evening.
That’s partly because this is no longer the formidable Azzurri that sustained a remarkable 37-game unbeaten streak that finally came to an end in September 2021. In the last 18 months Roberto Mancini’s side have won only six of their last 15 contests, topping their Nations League group but losing to North Macedonia, denying them participation in Qatar. There is also a quite significant blemish in being thrashed 5-2 by Germany.
All told, there have been high and lows with little in between as the former Manchester City boss remodels with varying success what was recently a clean-sheet-keeping, all-conquering machine and interestingly that remodeling continues. In his squad to face England, then Malta, are four uncapped players one of which has fascinated the Italian public for some time.
Argentinian but holding duel citizenship, striker Mateo Retegui will very likely start from the bench in Naples but keep an eye out regardless. The 23-year-old has been ripping it up for Tigre in the Primera Division, notching 25 in his last 35 outings.
Elsewhere, there will be some familiar faces, namely Jorginho, West Ham dud Gianluca Scamacca, and winger Wilfried Gnonto, a teen that Mancini clearly values. The Leeds star has assisted in each of his last two league showings.
Regarding absences, if England will miss Rashford, Italy are recoiling from Federico Chiesa’s late withdrawal. It’s a cross Mancini must bear.
As for England, Harry Kane is an obvious candidate to grab the headlines, the Spurs forward breaking the 20-goal barrier yet again in the Premier League, this time with ten games to spare. In his four previous encounters with Italy, Kane has drawn only blanks and he will be dead-set on amending that.
He will most probably be helped in this endeavour by Phil Foden and Bukayo Saka either side of him with Southgate expected to go with the same front-three deployed for both knock-out matches at the World Cup. If the Arsenal man has the better stats of the two this term it is Foden who should be backed to make a mark this week. After an unexpectedly middling campaign for the most part, the 22-year-old has been sensational of late for Manchester City.
Lastly, we come to a defence that – like Italy – used to be clean-sheet merchants but now tends to blow hot and cold. In their last six games, England have kept three shut-outs but conceded two-plus goals against France, Iran and Germany.
There doesn’t appear to be any rhyme or reason to this. Personnel doesn’t come into it, nor formation. They simply blow hot or cold.
Three days after heading to the peninsula, England entertain Ukraine, a country ravaged by war with a national side thrown into chaos as a consequence. Oddly, in their eight matches since the invasion – not including a Global Tour for Peace that saw the Blue and Yellow play club sides – they have come up against Scotland three times, winning once, losing once, and drawing, and this sums up the unpredictability around Ukraine at present, understandably so.
In Artem Dovbyk they have a goal-scorer who has fired 17 in 26 on international duty while Chelsea’s Mykhailo Mudryk will be a constant danger in spite of his oscillating output for the Blues to date.
