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Tthe big man is back, or at least is coming back. It’s a situation we’ve been in before with England on the eve of a big tournament in Germany. For Wayne Rooney after metatarsal at the 2006 World Cup, see Jude Bellinghamfor various reasons, and Euro 2024.
It’s been a grueling week for Gareth Southgate, dark clouds gathering as the manager prepares to make the final cuts to his squad, anxiety inevitable. This is football. But these are people too. The hard decisions, especially those about skip Harry MaguireJack Grealish and James Maddison, the first of the trio for fitness reasons, were felt by all.
The idea was that Sending off to Wembley against Iceland on Friday would have been a reset, but it was going hard the other way. The result was poor, a surprising 1-0 defeat; performance was worse. As Arsene Wenger used to say, momentum builds slowly and can disappear quickly. Southgate was unhappy in the dressing room, making it clear that everything needed to be better – especially the mentality.
Perhaps the players were nervous about finally getting injured; England the finals against Serbia begin next Sunday. John Stones almost did, jamming his leg under Iceland striker Jon Dagur Thorsteinsson as they went to ground in the first minute. Stones was able to continue despite being withdrawn at half-time and left Wembley with a brace on his right leg. Maybe there was a worry in the back of the mind. That’s why the intensity wasn’t there.
Southgate was worried about a number of problems, but after Iceland they seemed to be thrust into the public domain, with the narrative concerned with the search for someone to come to the rescue. This is where Bellingham – who was given extra time off after playing for Real Madrid in their Final victory in the Champions League over Borussia Dortmund last Saturday – enters.
It is not difficult to imagine him as a talisman, given the spectacular season he had for Madrid; how Southgate has rearranged his system from 4-3-3 to 4-2-3-1 to give him the No. 10 role, the most advanced platform possible. Falling into the trap of needing a personal savior would be a serious mistake.
“We don’t put everything on Jude,” Southgate said. “We’ve got a lot of good players and it’s a collective thing to go and try to win this tournament. If we rely on one person, it won’t be a winning team. I’m sure he will give the team a boost, but it’s not his responsibility to do so. It’s for all of us to get the focus right to make sure that individually our mentality is right.”
Southgate was asked if there were so many questions about his squad ahead of a tournament. “There’s an uncertainty, physically,” he said, mentioning it was the reason he ruled out Maguire and Jordan Henderson previously; to go straight to what bothers him the most.
Summary. Luke Shaw is the most obvious fitness concern; the hope is that the only specialist left-back will return to play some part in England’s second group game against Denmark on Thursday week. Like Maguire, he suffered a major setback in his rehabilitation from an injury in training at Manchester United – not a good look for the club’s medical department.
Kieran Trippier and Mark Gwehi returned at the end of the season to the Premier League after a long injury lay-off and had to be managed carefully. So is Bukayo Saka and Anthony Gordon, who picked up knocks in the last week and returned against Iceland, the former as a substitute.
Harry Kane has had a back problem and has missed Bayern Munich’s last two Bundesliga games. He saw action in both warm-up friendlies. Southgate also had to watch the likes of Stones, Kyle Walker, Phil Foden and Koby Mainoo after giving them a rest after playing in the FA Cup final two weeks ago.
Is Bellingham 100% fit? Probably a silly question at this stage of the season. Football players are rarely without pain, there is usually something that hurts them and especially now after accumulating so many games. But it’s easy to dwell on how Bellingham leaned against one of the posts in the 70th minute of the Champions League final to stretch his calf, possibly feeling some sort of cramp.
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On the night before the exhibition he was pictured with a strap over his shoulder; he had a shoulder problem in November which ruled him out of a match for Madrid. Does the bandage indicate a problem? Bellingham were not at their best against Dortmund.
England’s difficulties against Iceland lay in how open and vulnerable they were; the physical balance in the lineup was not right. When Iceland had the ball, they had more time to make their moves than they might have imagined. The question of who will play with Declan Rice in midfield continues to loom. It wasn’t Mainoo’s night in the position, but it was interesting to see Trent Alexander-Arnold introduced at right-back in the 64th minute rather than alongside Rice.
“Sometimes a performance like that can really sharpen the focus, sharpen the attention to the fundamentals of the game which have to be right,” Southgate said. “Maybe in the last couple of weeks we’ve talked too much about what we want to be on the ball and if you’re not good off the ball, which we weren’t, then you can have problems against any side.
“When you’re one game away from a tournament, there’s a bit of a desire not to get injured and a bit of a different focus. I have played these games myself.
“In the games we had at Middlesbrough [before the previous Euros in 2021] we won [against Austria and Romania] but they were not smooth high-intensity performances.
“I understand some of the reasons for that, but it’s also a blow at a good time for us because we’ll have to prepare next week on the ground. That means we’ll have a head start on the things we need.”
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