Rio Ferdinand has taken a swipe at Gareth Southgate for the way his England team played with Harry Kane in it during Euro 2024. Kane was one again far from his best in the final against Spain on Sunday night.
Kane did walk away with the joint Golden Boot after his three goals for the Three Lions, but he did not look his normal self throughout the entirety of the tournament.
For England’s captain and talisman it is irregular to be taken off the pitch in a big game, but that happened in each of the quarter-final, the semi-final and the final on Sunday too.
He has earned criticism from many quarters for coming deep far too regularly, but he has also, in many matches not had runners around him, which he needs to thrive.
And Ferdinand made one critical comment about how England failed to play to his strengths saying: “When he’s been at his best he’s had two flying wingers either side of him at Spurs and at Bayern Munich and teams that play the ball forward and have runners that are a threat in behind”.
Ferdinand said: “You need to play your players in their best possible positions that suit them and benefit them. I’ll give you examples of two players. Kane I think he’s played in a position after scoring 40-something goals for Bayern [Munich] this season and he’s played in this team in a way that doesn’t suit him.
We can talk about how good or bad he’s played, but you need to play to people’s strengths and if you switch that over to [Marc] Cucurella, who was ridiculed by his own supporters at Chelsea, who comes here and is arguably the best left-back in the tournament because he was played to his strengths and he was given pictures that suited his game.”
Leave a Reply