‘We need mavericks’: Readers question England’s World Cup chances after ‘turgid’ Ghana draw
As concerns mount over England’s goalless draw with Ghana, Independent readers have been sharing their views on what went wrong and whether Thomas Tuchel’s side has the depth to change games from the bench.
Many argued England’s attack was predictable, with repetitive wide play and little creativity through the middle, allowing Ghana’s low defensive block to hold firm.
Substitutions were widely criticised as like-for-like changes that added fresh legs but no new ideas, reinforcing the sense that England lacked a true game-changer when the match tightened.
Several also pointed to squad selection, arguing that the omission of more inventive players like Cole Palmer, Phil Foden and Jarrod Bowen left the team short of a different attacking gear when Plan A stalled.
Readers was split on what the result meant for England’s World Cup prospects. Some argued the performance was typical of group-stage football against disciplined sides and insisted progression matters more than performance at this stage.
Others warned that without a clearer Plan B and greater unpredictability from the bench, England will struggle against stronger sides in the knockout rounds.
Here’s what you had to say:
‘Afraid to lose’ football
Tommy Tuchel must be ripping his hair out. For the second half of the Croatia game he told the players that if they’re going to lose then they’ll lose playing the English style of football… and they won by not being afraid to play fast football.
Against Ghana they served up the same old ‘afraid to lose’ slow football. Oh… and PLEASE can someone tell the Arsenal players in the squad that the World Cup is not the English Premier League and the referees are NOT going to give them a free kick every time they fall over when they are tackled. So they need to get off their arses a bit faster after they’re tackled. Same applies to Jude Bellingham.
Same old England
Same old England, just wasted another two hours watching them. I remember the win of 1966 when the players received a mere £1000 bonus. I doubt I’ll live long enough to see them win again. Playing with some fire in their belly and losing would be better than this insipid performance. On this showing I predict they’ll be knocked out in the next round by penalty shoot-out.
We need mavericks
The thing that is lacking from England’s game is improvisation. It has always been a rare quality because England managers don’t much like maverick players – they don’t know how to use them. You have to have a Gascoigne or a Hazard or a Zola, Le Tissier etc. and give them free rein.
Organisation gets you only so far and then you need a bit of madness or genius to tip the balance.
Maybe that’s why Tuchel should have taken Palmer. Off the top of my head I can’t think of another in that vein – they are a scarce quantity.
Where’s Bowen?
Tuchel decided to leave the right-winger with by far the best Premier League stats last season at home, 9 goals 11 assists, perhaps Bowen will be glad he did.
Breaking down low blocks
Admittedly, it isn’t in the spirit of the game to ‘park the bus’, as Ghana did.
But you have to have the intelligence and ingenuity to open stubborn defences up.
Our players lack those qualities, and therefore won’t win the World Cup.
Alarming lack of creativity
To sum it up, ‘frustrating’. Onwards and upwards. Bring on Panama. Keep the back four as it is, Rashford, Saka (if fit), Mainoo and Rogers all start off goes Gordon, Madueke, Anderson and Bellingham.
No surprise with the performance to be honest, still disappointing all the same. The lack of creativity was alarming. Panama won’t fear us that’s for sure, they’ll sit back as Ghana did and play on the counter. Tuchel needs to do something different come Saturday, do we have the capacity to do that? We shall see.
Penalty claim
What nobody is mentioning is that Ghana should have had a penalty through the Konsa tackle, we were lucky.
So slow in the first half, no press, dismal.
It can’t always be thrills and spills
Suddenly England are the worst team ever again. No, they failed to break down a team that had come to grind out a draw against the team expected to win the group. That’s group stage football. It’s not always going to be thrills and spills.
Lack of urgency
I’m a Tranmere Rovers season ticket holder. That performance reminded me of so many of our games last season. No urgency, no imagination and turgid. Of course the players were all much more skilful, but it was tedious in the extreme.
Are England really top-tier?
Who’s shocked? In the last 12 months England have been beaten 3–1 by Senegal, 1–0 by Japan and only scraped a 1–0 win over Andorra and New Zealand, with a 1–1 draw to Uruguay. The only thing that’s shocking is they’re still classed as a top-tier team and get easier group stages.
Get behind the team
The main purpose of the group stage is to get through to the next round – ideally as top of the group. England is still on course for that.
Was it a good performance – no. Did their opponents play well – yes. Should you want the England team to hit top form this early in the tournament – no.
The team are doing their best and will do OK at the World Cup. They are not the best team and football’s home is not England.
Perhaps the fans and the pundits could be a bit more appreciative of the team they actually have and support them positively, no matter what. The team will also probably play better when they don’t have to endure an onslaught of criticism every time they don’t meet the ridiculously unachievable expectations of the fans.
England would have learned from this game
These are qualifying stages – you don’t get a better position if you beat a team by eight goals. Whilst not the most enjoyable game to watch, England would have learned a lot from it. They have played less than 17 days as a squad, and are still finding their feet. And they didn’t concede any goals or lose.
You can’t win them all
Well I thought they played reasonably well against a team that had a very good keeper and whose game plan was to simply pack their goal with players and try the occasional counter attack.
You can’t win them all at this stage and plenty of other teams have drawn with lower-ranked teams.
But what do I know. Rugby is my game.
No time for negativity
This is no time for negativity and pessimism. Ghana played well and deserved the result. England must live with that, dust themselves down and prepare for their next match. Football journalists tend to lurch wildly from excessive optimism when England score a few goals, as in their opening match, to despair when an underrated side plays well. When I played football for my university, we never allowed ourselves to be drawn into this sort of thinking.
It should be said that Ghana’s manager Carlos Queiroz is very experienced at 73 years of age and knows the English game well as he worked under Alex Ferguson at Manchester United in the early 2000s. This experience will have been invaluable to Ghana in the match. He also warned in advance that England would not have an easy time – could it be that England were too complacent about this match?
Some of the comments have been edited for this article for brevity and clarity.
Want to share your views? Simply click ‘log in’ or ‘register’ in the top right corner to sign in or sign up. Once registered, you can comment on the day’s top stories for a chance to have your opinions showcased
Want your voice to stand out? Independent Premium subscribers enjoy priority for featured comments. Subscribe here
Make sure you adhere to our community guidelines, which can be found here. For a full guide on how to comment, click here
