This month marks two years since Gareth Southgate was booed by his own team’s fans after England lost to Italy in Milan and confirmed their relegation from the Nations League’s premier tier.
At the time it didn’t seem that big of a deal. What was more worrying was the imminent drop in form before the World Cup in Qatar. But what is now suffering the impact is Lee Carsley’s attempts to reinvent and revitalise the national team.
The Nations League is a good competition. It has filled dates traditionally reserved for friendlies with competitive matches and that is helpful. In its first year, in 2019, England came close to reaching the final, one of the first steps towards improvement and relevance for Southgate and his team.
Unfortunately for the current version of England, their relegation means that, for now, the big, demanding games against teams like Germany, Italy, France and Portugal, for example, have been replaced by evenings like this. A game against a team ranked 63rd in the world from which it was extremely difficult to learn anything.
We saw once again that Harry Kane can score goals. These were two incredible goals for the man with the 100th goal. Finnish goalkeeper Lukas Hradecky dived to catch both, but it’s unlikely he saw them as they sped past. Maybe he heard them.
Harry Kane scored twice as England claimed a 2-0 home win over 63rd-placed Finland
It’s difficult for England and Lee Carsley to know where they stand as they are not up against the elite.
We also saw another very promising performance from Anthony Gordon and another reminder of Trent Alexander-Arnold’s passing range. All good.
But, with Finland sitting back in their own half and playing (perhaps even praying) for survival from the first minute, what did this really tell us? England had more than 75 per cent of the possession. After half an hour, England defender John Stones had completed more passes (45) than the entire Finnish team, which had completed 41.
On the one hand, a Nations League group also featuring the Republic of Ireland and Greece offers interim manager Lee Carsley a decent run of games in which to feel comfortable, but in terms of the growth of this group of players, and perhaps the manager too, the horizons seem limited and that is a shame.
England are, incidentally, the only major European nation to have made it into the second group. Carsley’s side are ranked fourth in the world and the closest team to them in terms of FIFA’s ranking in this section is Ralf Rangnick’s Austria, ranked 22nd.
So the point is clear. Carsley can only do what he knows how to do. He can only send his teams out to beat what is in front of them. In beating the Republic of Ireland on Saturday, England were impressive. Greece beat the Irish by the same scoreline, 2-0, in Dublin on Tuesday night.
At a less than full Wembley, England showed sporadic, if not constant, dominance. They deserved to win and probably would have done so by more had Kane’s early header not been ruled out for offside.
Jack Grealish has expressed himself outside of Pep Guardiola’s tactical restrictions
Anthony Gordon produced another encouraging performance on the senior international stage
There was further encouragement when Trent Alexander-Arnold showed off his passing range.
There was no danger and there is unlikely to be much in any of the Nations League matches.
From the start, it looked like the night was going to be one in which the first goal could ruin the season for the Finns if it came too soon. Fortunately for them (and at times they were lucky) it didn’t happen and that allowed them to give an air of respectability to the result.
Competitive football can only be seen in name. There was no risk involved and that is the key. Nor is there likely to be much when Greece come to London next month and then England travel to Helsinki to face Finland again three days later.
Gordon and Alexander-Arnold were not the only players to impress here. Lille’s Angel Gomes (the first French-based player to make his England debut since Trevor Stevens in 1992) was tidy and progressive with his passing, while Jack Grealish continued to enjoy expressing himself free from the tactical restrictions of his club manager, Pep Guardiola.
And yes, England played better than when they struggled through the Euros against Serbia, Slovenia, Slovakia and the rest. Southgate’s side played dull, end-of-an-era football in Germany, and this was not the case. England have had momentum and direction under Carsley so far and that speaks well of the 50-year-old.
However, the context is not necessarily favourable for the interim manager this morning. The truth is that we will not know what he has in store for the big occasion unless his stint as interim manager is extended beyond these six games or, even, he is given the job permanently between now and the end of this competition in November.
Angel Gomes, in his second appearance for England’s senior team, once again caught the eye
England will win their group of four teams, for sure. They will soon earn promotion to the land of the greats, Group A. However, the experiences of Germany 2024 tell us that this English team has a lot of room for growth and development.
The pertinent question is whether the fact that they have lost six free-kick matches in the Nations League dead helps them in that regard.