England recorded a 3-0 victory over Scotland in a World Cup qualifier on Friday night. The win at Wembley was not as comfortable as the scoreline suggests.
The visitors created a number of chances. However, they failed to take them, while the Three Lions scored with their only shots on target through Daniel Sturridge, Adam Lallana and Gary Cahill.
Following this victory temporarily boss Gareth Southgate is likely to be handed the job on a permanent basis. The former Middlesbrough boss has plenty of work to do in the role.
His team attempted to build up play from the back. However, while full-backs Danny Rose and Kyle Walker looked good on the ball, centre-backs Gary Cahill and John Stones looked highly uncomfortable with the ball at their feet.
Stones is regarded as a bright young ball-playing centre-back, but he looked nervous every time he received the ball. In fact, he has a habit of overplaying when it really is not needed. The youngster seemed to have cut out the risk taking when joined Manchester City in the summer.
However, on Friday night he took risks on the ball in dangerous positions. Luckily enough Scotland did not have the quality in front of goal to punish the City defender.
Another poor aspect of the performance was England’s ball retention. Too often the England players gave the ball away or made the wrong decision when in a promising position. Winger Raheem Sterling looked dangerous at times for the Three Lions, but his decision-making and end product were poor at times.
It certainly was not a perfect performance from England against an average Scotland team. If England had been playing against better opposition they may have been in trouble.
Three Lions boss Gareth Southgate will have learnt a lot from the game and will no doubt be looking to improve his team’s performances in future.