England boss Thomas Tuchel felt his side lacked “urgency and quality” as they laboured to a 1-0 World Cup qualifying win over Andorra in Barcelona.
Harry Kane finally gave the 6,950 travelling fans something to cheer about when he broke the deadlock early in the second half, turning in lively Noni Madueke’s cross, but the expected goals onslaught did not follow.
“I am not happy with the performance, of course,” German coach Tuchel said on ITV1. “We started quite well in the first 20-25 minutes, which was the only part where I had the feeling it was only a matter of time, we created a lot of half-chances and from set-pieces, that we will score and keep on going.
“But we lost completely the momentum and couldn’t get it back through the whole of the first half. We got a little bit of it back in the first 15 minutes of the second half and then ended up in a period which was by far not good enough – lack of urgency, lack of quality and lack of energy.”
England play a friendly against Senegal in Nottingham on Tuesday night and Tuchel is expecting a much-improved display.
“We can just admit it that it’s not what we expect from us and we need to do better,” the England boss added. “We need a bit of time to look at it in detail and address it clearly and directly to be better on Tuesday.”
Tuchel was also not happy with how England finished the match. “We have to play until the 93rd minute. I didn’t like the lack of urgency in the end,” he said.
“It did not match the occasion at all, it is still a qualifier away from home, I didn’t like it at all. The players know all I said to you, because I said it in the dressing room, but it is also necessary to have a look in detail, watch the match again, and then we will let them know tomorrow what we want from them.”
England captain Kane accepted it “wasn’t the greatest performance”. The Bayern Munich forward added: “I don’t think many people will remember this one but we can learn from it.
“It is very hot here, a dry pitch, probably similar conditions to maybe next year at the World Cup, so we will go away and analyse. We had good spells in the game but we couldn’t have attack after attack. We take the three points and we move on.”
England’s listless display did not sit well with former Republic of Ireland international Roy Keane, who offered a scathing post-match analysis.
“We try and make excuses for England with the end of the season and it’s been tough on the players,” the former Manchester United midfielder said on ITV1.
“I thought the first half was okay but when they scored the goal it felt it was job done. I was really disappointed with England’s attitude after the goal went in. The manager can’t be happy with that effort in the last half an hour.
“I felt like some of the players looked like they got bored in the last half an hour and I don’t like to see that.”
Content Source: www.express.co.uk