Motivational t-shirts and posters would have us believe that luck is always accompanied by hard work and preparation but sometimes an individual – or, in this instance, a nation – can simply be randomly fluky.

So it is that England, after hugely disappointing in their group outings, find themselves in a draw so favourable it could have been conceived by Gareth Southgate’s own hand.

With Germany topping their group and France finishing runner-up in theirs it means that these tournament giants – along with Portugal and Spain – cannot be encountered until the final. On Wednesday evening Belgium were taken out of England’s flightpath too.

And that would have been enough, that was more than ample good fortune for a team who, due to their own failings, were in desperate need of a break. Only then, it got even better when Georgia beat a Portuguese side mainly made up of reserves.

That meant that Holland were avoided in the last 16, with Slovakia lined up instead.

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To be clear, nobody is getting carried away here. England have been torpid, and passive, and disjointed to date. Their best players appear to have been replaced by imposters incapable of finding a team-mate with any sort of incisive pass. Their manager is experimenting on the go.

The Three Lions have significant structural and performance issues that aren’t going away anytime soon. At best they can be worked around.

But Slovakia? A team ranked lower than Tunisia and Panama, who have not beaten England in six previous attempts. It could be a lot worse, that’s fair to say.

After all, England have only lost once to a team ranked beyond FIFA’s top 40 across Southgate’s 98 games at the helm.

Back England to win but under 2.5 goals total at 7/4. The Three Lions have averaged just one goal per game in 2024

Still, such is the welter of problems witnessed from a squad that travelled to Germany priced up as tournament favourites, it’s difficult not to see obstacles and threats at every turn.

In nets, the Falcons have Martin Dubravka who by and large impressed for Newcastle last season. Ahead of him is Milan Skriniar, one of the world’s most complete centre-backs, and together with Denis Vavro they form a defensive unit that is consistently hard to penetrate. Slovakia have only lost twice by more than a single goal margin in their last 36 contests, keeping clean sheets in three of their last five.

They won’t exactly be trembling by what they’ve seen from England to this juncture, with xGs of 0.52, 0.87 and 0.80 posted in the group games.   

In midfield meanwhile, Ondrej Duda is comfortably handling the pressure of being Marek Hamsik’s creative successor, accruing a 96% pass completion rate in his team’s opening win over Belgium and then scoring against Romania.

Then there’s the left-sided attacking talent of Lukas Haraslin, who has statistically been Slovakia’s best player.

Indeed, the more you study them, factoring in England’s many shortcomings, the more you worry.

Oh, and that singular loss to a minnow? That wasn’t way back when. That was Iceland, three weeks ago; the game that starkly illustrated that something is seriously amiss with Kane and company.

England have scored early twice-over at the Euros but Slovakia will be a tougher nut to crack, with subs possibly key. Go for Draw/England at 3/1

It is a compendium of concerns that have become national talking points.

Why does Harry Kane suddenly feel like a player that needs to be accommodated when he has elevated England for years? Is a system focused on getting the best out of Bellingham counter-intuitively throwing the team out of shape and making Jude obscure? How can a notable lack of balance in midfield be fixed? Does the team sit so deep via coaching instruction and furthermore, how can a side entrenched in their own half still offer up so much space and so many chances on the edge of their box?

And on it goes, spiraling into neurosis.

Kane has scored in each of his last three round of 16 games for England at major tournaments and should not be discounted from doing so again. He is 23/20 to convert anytime on Sunday

Pertinently, some of these issues were in part addressed against Slovenia from players coming in fresh to the collective crisis. The introduction of Kobbie Mainoo at half-time quickly led to England’s midfield breaking the lines and advancing beyond the front three and this in itself made England more three-dimensional to the side that had previously laboured the ball to Bukayo Saka as their only attacking strategy.

Damningly, England’s progression of the ball to forward areas has been the slowest at the Euros, at 1.24 metres per second.

Saka incidentally is exempt from blame for much of this, the winger doing fine in light of his recent injury, but again it took an alternative to bring about improvement. That’s because from his first dip of a shoulder on Tuesday evening Cole Palmer introduced something entirely new to a struggling side, namely some ingenuity and the ambition to take risks.

It really was a splendid 20 minute cameo.

Will the Chelsea star therefore be rewarded for his impact with a starting spot this weekend? Regrettably that’s doubtful, with Southgate a cautious man at the best of times and an overly-cautious manager amidst a major tournament.

All we can hope for is that Palmer’s inventive passing in the final third acts as a reminder to the others that ABC-football simply doesn’t cut it at this level.

The stats, unsurprisingly, back this up too. Three games in, England have posted the fifth lowest number of shots on target; they’ve won the fourth fewest number of corners.

In both instances, Slovakia top them. In a parallel competition Tunisia and Panama probably would too.

England averaged three corners per 90 in the group stage. Under 4.5 corners for Southgate’s men is a shout at 7/4

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