With such a poor performance in the group stage, why do I still believe England can bounce back? Today, the sick cat in England is about to transform into a lion.
England's performance in the group stage has been sky-high, with a squad worth more than €1.5 billion, but they have only created 2.19 expected goals in three group games, ranking third from the bottom of the tournament. Obviously, his personal ability is the world's top player, why is it so constipated when he puts it together?
Lack of attacking creativity is the biggest problem for England at the moment, and although England are averaging 622 passes per game, they are only 17th in the number of key passes they make at 7.3, and have not scored any assists.
This is because of England's three-midfield configuration, Rice is responsible for the back-to-back defense, Bellingham likes to wander around, which is what we call a B2B midfielder, but the only thing missing is a playmaking midfielder like Kroos or Rodri to help the team sort out the attack.
Southgate tried Trent Alexander-Arnold and Conor Gallagher starting separately in the group stage, but it didn't work, Arnold was a right-back after all, and Gallagher was a pure engineer who couldn't control the pace of the game at all.
However, in the last game, although they were held to a draw by Slovenia, England finally found the answer in midfield, that is, to replace Conor Gallagher in the second half, Manchester United's 19-year-old Kobi Maynu.
Let's take a look at the changes that Mainou has brought to England after his appearance.
First of all, possession soared from 68.5 per cent in the first half to 79 per cent in the second half, and it is important to note that England's possession was not invalid, with 42 entries into the final third and 18 touches in the opposition box, compared to 30 and 10 in the first half respectively.
From the heat map of Menu's activities, we can see that he is almost everywhere, picking up teammates everywhere, helping the team to sort out the attack, Menu made 34 passes in the game, succeeded 33 times, and regained the ball 4 times, not only completed the task of organizing the attack, but also made a good contribution on the defensive end.
If nothing else, with his excellent performances, Maynoo is likely to get a starting spot, so that England's attack can be revitalized.
On the Slovak side, although there was a shock defeat to Belgium, the team's performance is showing a downward trend, Slovakia's average age of starting the group stage reached 30 years and 218 days, the oldest in this European Cup, and their players over 35 years old played a total of 809 minutes.
They ran 120 km in the first round, down to 117 km in the second and 107 km in the third.
With such a dense schedule of the European Cup, veterans like Kucska and Pecarik, the more they get behind, the less energy they will have.
And England, even if it is a substitute lineup, is at the level of the Premier League, and the intensity of the knockout stage is completely different from the group stage, and the later the game, the greater the advantage of England. So on the whole, I still look forward to England's rebirth and easy victory to advance to the top 8!