Tactical breakdown: England were pulled apart down the left flank time and again

England threw a huge bucket of cold water over national expectations. They were as bad as they had been good on Monday and the inability to create chances with such rich attacking talent means the finger will be pointing at Gareth Southgate again. Booed off by their fans, where did it go wrong for England?

Left in the lurch

Luke Shaw, Raheem Sterling and Declan Rice, in that he was the midfielder clearing up at the back really couldn’t get the measure of Timothy Weah and supporting full back Sergino Dest.

Virtually all England’s problems in the first half stemmed from that area. It seemed Weston McKennie was given huge amounts of space in front of the left back and left centre half to direct play.

England’s shape was pulled apart and Shaw’s positioning, as a consequence, became wayward. The Christian Pulisic mistimed header on 43 minutes came from a Weah cross and Dest drove dangerously into the box on 40 minutes winning a corner.

But the issue had started long before then with USA enjoying freedom and possession in that area. Though the most dangerous chance of the half, Pulisic’s strike onto the bar, came from England’s right side, it was only after the USA had worked the ball down the left with McKennie and then switched the play.

Slow, quick, slow, slow, slow

England started slowly but from ten minutes to twenty minutes enjoyed a period of dominance where they mimicked the Iran game.

It started with the excellent move with Kieran Trippier feeding Jude Bellingham who found Bukayo Saka. His pull back found Harry Kane and only the Walter Zimmerman block prevented England opening the scoring.

These were precisely the movements, combinations and over laps that overwhelmed Iran. Harry Maguire was spraying passes cross-field to Raheem Sterling and for a period it looked rather easy, England dominant.

Yet they slowed their passing speed, there seemed less willingness to show for the ball, less vision from Bellingham and Rice in driving the play. Saka faded and Sterling only impressed in moments.

At one point John Stones drove down the right midfield, hoping to create an overload. But Maguire declined to use him. England were playing too safe.

Only in final minutes of the first did England look dangerous: Shaw driving into the box only for Saka to lift his shot over and then Sterling finding Mount with a fortunate nutmeg, the Chelsea man unleashing a fine strike stuck from twenty yards. Yet it was keeper Turner’s first test.

Right back to where we started from

It might have been a left-sided problem in the first half but the dominance in the second half where America forced a succession of corners. England couldn’t get out of their half and while each corner was dealt with satisfactorily, they were on the back foot.

This was Southgate’s chance to show he could change a game in play. Nothing had changed in the first 15 minutes of the half, England were going nowhere.

It took until 69 minutes to make the change though, Bellingham, whose brilliance from the first game waned dramatically, for Henderson and Grealish on for Sterling. Marcus Rashford joined them for Saka in 78 minutes.

All that attacking talent, so little to show

John Stones hit a long ball but there were no runners on 75 minutes: Stones punched the air in frustration. You could argue the centre halves weren’t ambitious enough at times in their delivery, yet they had precious little movement in front of them.

England couldn’t register a single shot on goal in the second half until Marcus Rashford tame curling effort into Matt Turner on 87 minutes.

Henderson added energy and direction and had a long chat with Mount about the positions he needed him to run into. Grealish attempted to run at players but ended in blind alleys. Rashford couldn’t get a run away.

The structured patterns of play that were a feature against Iran were absent here. It was laboured, predictable and the final ball was invariably poor. The Southgate haters will be out in force again after this. And England should certainly be able to create more than this.