As Gareth Southgate observed on Friday, the noise around his England team does “seem extremely loud” and he did not mean it in a positive way. This is what happens when any mis-steps are taken and there was certainly one in the 1-0 defeat to Hungary in Budapest last Saturday.
There would be further moaning three days later when England drew in Germany, based on the disjointed nature of the performance rather than the encouraging late fight back. What Southgate needed here – apart from a win – was for his players to show greater cohesion for longer periods, to take better care of the ball and ask questions of an experimental Italy team; to pull them out of shape.
