That was pretty much what happened v Croatia 3 years ago except we held on a little longer. Southgate tried to defend a lead from the opening 10 minutes. If we had carried on getting at Italy we may well have gotten a second goal.
Despite trying to pulis the result from our start he didn't make his changes until too late. And when he came to them they were wrong rice had been our best player. Henderson was shocking and really is a limited footballer he should have gone Bellingham if he wanted to change in cm. Saka had a stinker and it wasn't compounded by missing the penalty (that he shouldn't be taking) Sancho has just signed for Man Utd for £70m + and has only played 90 minutes all tournament.
We were poor v Czech Republic and Scotland. And suddenly found momentum when mount couldn't play and he changed his system. I think a better manager in charge and we win tonight our attacking talent is totally under utilised.
Although it takes a very brace decision by fa to sack a man with a World Cup semi final and a European final to his name after how Barron we had been previously.
It was what happened against Colombia in '18 also. A goal early in the second half, followed by Colombia dominating possession and England desperately trying to kill the game with every time-wasting tactic in the book before being deservedly punished for it. On that occasion they managed to win the shoot-out, but they were lucky on the night.
The way the Croatia semi-final was going to go was inevitable as soon as England scored.
As soon as England scored last night the way it was going to go was, yet again, inevitable.
This isn't entirely down to tactics though, or at least not in the way most seem to think, but the style and standard of the opposition in those games.
Southgate's game-plan has been to play with a high-intensity attack and pressing game from kick-off, hope to rattle the opposition and ultimately get an early goal, which then gives the team something to hang onto. The team for the most part isn't capable of playing like they play in the first 25-30 minutes of games for the whole 90 minutes, if they tried they'd be dead on their feet by the hour mark. As it is, after those early parts of the game teams like Croatia, Colombia and Italy eventually settle into the match, their better technical quality sees them having more and more of the ball and they begin to have the better of the game. More often than not this leads to an equaliser, which more often than not leads to England coming up short.
In fairness to Southgate, I suspect he knows that if England tried to play these teams at their own game they would be more likely to get beat, but he's developed a game plan which has proved to make this England side more competitive against the better sides.