Former Manchester United and England player, Paul Scholes, criticized Harry Kane for entering the middle of the pitch during their defeat to Argentina in the World Cup semi-final.
Kane is England’s leading goalscorer at the World Cup, and at all competitions in the national team’s history, but he also tends to come down to dictate how the game is played.
In this instance, it seems like the wrong choice as Scholes felt he was trying to do too much, and it would have annoyed him as a midfielder.
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“If I keep seeing my midfielder almost behind me, I’d hate that. I want my midfielder to play midfield. I think that’s leadership from midfield,” Scholes said on The Good, The Bad, and The Football Podcast.
“If it’s me or Nicky, or me and Roy [Keane]whoever you are as a midfielder, we can say: ‘What if—what are you doing?’ That’s Elliot Anderson and Declan Rice; they should be saying: ‘Get out of here, we need you up there.'”
What Harry Kane said about England’s defeat in the World Cup
Kane himself spoke about the problems in the England team after the pain of the 2-1 defeat by Argentina on Wednesday night.
Anthony Gordon had given the Three Lions a 1-0 lead, but two late goals from Enzo Fernandez and Lautaro Martinez turned the game around.
Argentina will now be in the final against Spain, and there is likely to be a huge crowd of people looking for last minute World Cup tickets for what should be a great spectacle, although it’s a shame England won’t be there.
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Discussing what went wrong, Kane said: “We were really close to another final but it wasn’t enough. We gave it our all in the last seven weeks and failure is hard to take!
“I know hopes are high and rightly so, we’ve been knocking on the door for eight years and still no final piece!
Is Thomas Tuchel England’s biggest problem?
While Kane may be criticized by Scholes and others, there is no doubt that the main man feeling the heat at the moment will be England manager Thomas Tuchel.
The German tactician defended his tactics, but appeared to make a defensive mistake with plenty of time remaining against Argentina.
Tuchel brought Gordon on for Ezri Konsa, and there were reports of England players unhappy with his poor form towards the end of the game.
The former coach of England, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, says that he feels that this would not have happened under former coach Gareth Southgate.
“We talk after the game, and it’s easy, you know, but I don’t think Gareth would have gone back. I don’t think he would have gone for it 20, 25 minutes before the end of the game,” Hasselbaink said.
“I don’t think Steve Holland would have liked him to do that. The reason why I think when they played against Italy, they played five games; they had difficulty coming out and all that sort of thing. I think he would have kept it to four.
“I think he would have changed the wide players and he is stronger up front so that he can press from the front and be able to escape the defense.”
