England suffered a historic 0-1 friendly defeat to Japan. After drawing 1-1 with Uruguay in their previous match, England had hoped to silence the critics with a strong performance. However, the Three Lions once again looked flat and lacking direction. With captain Harry Kane absent, England barely threatened to find an equalizer at Wembley Stadium.
Lee Dixon, former Arsenal and England defender, heavily criticized Cole Palmer on ITV, claiming the attacker failed to track back properly when Kaoru Mitoma scored the winning goal and instead “hit the brakes”.“Palmer lost possession by taking unnecessary risks… he didn’t do enough in that regard tonight. When he gave the ball away in midfield, his job was to chase back. He nearly caught Mitoma before slowing down suddenly, allowing the Japanese player to burst past him into space and finish a brilliant counter-attack.”
Dixon also disapproved of Phil Foden’s performance as the starting false nine in Kane’s absence.“I think Thomas Tuchel rates Michael O’Riley highly and he will make the World Cup squad. As for the others… I really don’t know what to say. Palmer wasn’t good enough tonight, and neither was Foden. They don’t have many more games to experiment, do they? This is the final match before the World Cup, with only warm-up games and squad announcements to come. Playing Foden as a false nine simply hasn’t worked, that’s for sure. If Gareth Southgate insists on this idea, it’s probably to prepare for a potential Kane injury. But in my opinion, Foden hasn’t been convincing in this role at all.”
