Overly cautious management has not been limited to England. France have been lucky to progress, despite a wealth of talent and Portugal were hindered by Martinez, I feel, in pandering to Ronaldo, despite him disjointing the team.
One thing I would say though is that this is the 3rd out of 4 semi-finals we have made in major tournaments. Some will say we have often had favourable teams in the earlier rounds through tournaments, but I think this does a disservice to the opposition. Switzerland are a good and well drilled side currently and we beat them, even if only on penalties. We did play better though. I wish Southgate would make substitutions earlier and we have rode our luck at times, but we have got here due to moments of class from the players, like Bellingham v Slovakia and Saka on Saturday. Let that be the death knell for the John Nicholsons who want to pretend that our players are rubbish, and not as good as Turkey or Georgia. Other countries, who have been stated to be better, haven’t been able to carve out those moments like our ‘overhyped’ players have.
