Former Manchester United and England star Paul Scholes has slammed Harry Kane for dropping into midfield during the World Cup semi-final against Argentina.
Kane is England’s all-time leading scorer not only at the World Cup but in every competition in the national team’s history, but he also has a penchant for dropping deep to dictate play.
At the time, it seemed like the wrong choice as Scholes felt he was overdoing it and as a midfielder he would be frustrated.
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“If I keep seeing my centre-forwards pretty much behind me half the time, I don’t want that. I want my centre-forwards to play centre-forward, and I think that’s leadership from midfield as well,” Scholes said on The Good, The Bad, and The Football Podcast.
“If it was me or Nicky or me and Roy[Keane]or whoever was in the midfield, they would say: “What are you doing?” That’s up to Elliott Anderson and Declan Rice. They should say: “Get out of here, we need you there.”
What Harry Kane said about England’s World Cup defeat
Kane himself addressed the England team’s problems after Wednesday night’s disappointing 2-1 defeat to Argentina.
Anthony Gordon gave the Three Lions a 1-0 lead, but two late goals from Enzo Fernandes and Lautaro Martinez turned the game around.
Argentina are set to play in the final against Spain, and even though it’s a shame England won’t be participating, there will be plenty of people looking for last-minute World Cup final tickets for what should be a spectacular spectacle.
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Speaking about what went wrong, Kane said: “We were so close, so close to another final, but it wasn’t enough. We’ve given everything these past seven weeks, so to fall one step short is unbearable!”
“I know expectations are high and rightfully so. We’ve been knocking on the door for eight years, but once again we’re missing the last piece of the jigsaw. That’s where we have to go away and find a way to process and improve.”
Is Thomas Tuchel England’s biggest problem?
Kane may have received some criticism from Scholes and others, but there is no doubt that the main person feeling the heat at the moment is England manager Thomas Tuchel.
The German tactician has stuck to his tactics, but he seems to have made a huge mistake by being too defensive with so much time remaining against Argentina.
Tuchel has attracted attention for bringing Gordon on as a substitute for Ezri Konsa, with reports suggesting England players were unhappy with his passive approach towards the end of games.
Former England manager Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink says he doesn’t think anything like this would have happened under Gareth Southgate.
Hasselbaink said: “We talked about it after the game, it’s easy, but I didn’t think Gareth was going to be in the back five. I didn’t think he was going to be in the back five with 20, 25 minutes until the end of the game.”
“I don’t think Steve Holland wanted him to do that. The reason I think that is because when they played Italy they played five points. They had a hard time getting out and things like that. I think he would have kept it to four points.”
“I think he replaced the wide players and there was still some energy up front, so we were able to press from the front and get behind the opponent’s defence.”
