Pickford was badly positioned for the goal, and had an erratic spell in the first half. He gave the ball directly to their wide forwards twice in quick succession, and we lost confidence to play through the press and resorted to kicking long. Unfortunately his long kicking was poor as well, and the height of the Danes meant we kept losing the ball in the air. That was our poorest period in the game.
In attack, we tried to cross the call in the air too often in the first half, which was easy for their centrebacks. The players took a bit too long to realise that our best way of playing was keeping the ball on the ground and using speed to turn their centrebacks in the channels. People call Kane thick, but he was the first to make the tactical adjustment, dropping into the 10 role and playing through balls.
In midfield, we didn't make our numerical advantage count enough in the first half. I think Mount should have dropped deeper to help play through the press. We seemed to do better in the second half. There is also a compromise playing both Rice and Philips, as neither will run beyond the opposition defence. Henderson did that when he came on, which helped going forward.
It was a good performance overall, but if we don't play better against Italy we will lose.
Good summary - thought Kane was excellent (Spurs fan bias too) but you're absolutely right; there was a clear period when he started to move out to the flanks to pull the defence apart and create space for others. How many times was Pickford's grumpy teenager face shown yesterday?
For balance I will do the negatives I saw.
Pickford was badly positioned for the goal, and had an erratic spell in the first half. He gave the ball directly to their wide forwards twice in quick succession, and we lost confidence to play through the press and resorted to kicking long. Unfortunately his long kicking was poor as well, and the height of the Danes meant we kept losing the ball in the air. That was our poorest period in the game.
In attack, we tried to cross the call in the air too often in the first half, which was easy for their centrebacks. The players took a bit too long to realise that our best way of playing was keeping the ball on the ground and using speed to turn their centrebacks in the channels. People call Kane thick, but he was the first to make the tactical adjustment, dropping into the 10 role and playing through balls.
In midfield, we didn't make our numerical advantage count enough in the first half. I think Mount should have dropped deeper to help play through the press. We seemed to do better in the second half. There is also a compromise playing both Rice and Philips, as neither will run beyond the opposition defence. Henderson did that when he came on, which helped going forward.
It was a good performance overall, but if we don't play better against Italy we will lose.