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Title : BREAKING NEWS: England Tackle Nigeria 2-1 In World Cup Friendly Warm Up
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BREAKING NEWS: England Tackle Nigeria 2-1 In World Cup Friendly Warm Up

In the recent era they have barely left a smudge on the consciousness of World Cup finals but if the penultimate friendly before Russia 2018 told us one thing it was that Gareth Southgate is at least an England manager who is prepared to attack the greatest tournament in sport.

This was a performance of ambition that took England into a two-goal half-time lead and saw them stretched rather more after the break once Nigeria had got the measure of a 3-5-2 Southgate formation that committed many more to attack than defence. It will be more the first half than the second that Southgate hopes he will see in Russia, one in which Jesse Lingard and Dele Alli had two of their better games in midfield, and Harry Kane and Raheem Sterling were given license to attack as a partnership.

There was an opening goal from Gary Cahill and Kane followed with a second before half-time, as things clicked in midfield and Nigeria looked hesitant ahead of a half-time re-organisation.

Southgate selected Jordan Pickford in goal and gave the Everton man the full 90 minutes, indicating that it is he who is the lead candidate to be the No 1 when they begin their World Cup against Tunisia in Volgograd on June 18.

There will be more clues at Elland Road on Thursday when the last friendly against Costa Rica gives Southgate a chance to finesse this team and add those Liverpool players who have been absent so far, but the basic idea is clear. There is a commitment to possession and the attacking qualities in his squad with just one holding midfielder in Eric Dier and a premium placed on moving the ball forward fast, which England did in the first half.

A goal for Nigeria from Arsenal’s Alex Iwobi at the start of the second half meant that it was more difficult after the break when there was also a yellow card for Sterling for diving. The performance had not been quite as sharp all round for England and, Southgate began to look at the changes required.

When he went in at half-time Southgate will have known at the very least that he had a formation that was working and better yet, a group of players who felt like the right men in the right positions. Not since his very first game in charge of the England team, against Malta on Oct 8 2016, had they been two goals up at half-time and it was hard to remember a time when they had looked more cohesive.

The Super Eagles of Nigeria were, it should be said, not exactly soaring and there were more than one occasion when a pass in midfield and its intended recipient looked so far off as to make you wonder what the idea was in the first place. But that was partly about England’s midfield sweat, where they pressed relentlessly and forced the mistake that led to their second goal.

Southgate used Eric Dier as the single holding midfielder in front of his favoured three centre-halves, and around him Dele Alli and Jesse Lingard covered the space between the two penalty areas. All three were excellent in the first half and their movement and willingness to move the ball forward quickly were five beats ahead of their Nigerian counterparts.

England finished the first half with 65 per cent of the possession but it was more what they did with in that period that gave cause for hope. They showed in March against Italy and Holland that they could keep the ball but struggled at times to move it rapidly. This time they moved it forward crisply and quickly and the opposition struggled to contain them.

The first goal was a magnificent header from Cahill, the fifth of his 59-cap career, and a connection so solid that it was past goalkeeper Francis Uzoho in an instant. Moments before then Uzoho had pushed a free-kick from Kieran Trippier around the post and it was the Spurs man who delivered the ball onto the head of Cahill. England looked dangerous from set-pieces.

Both Trippier and Ashley Young in the other wing-back position pushed up high and supported the running from midfield of Alli and Lingard. There were chances too for Sterling, effectively a partner for Kane in attack but the former just lacked that sharp edge in front of goal that he has had at Manchester City this season. The difference was that England were creating more chances than they have in recent games: a couple for Sterling and a near post move that almost got Lingard in.

There were boos for Alli from the Nigeria fans for choosing to place for the country of his birth rather than that of his father, whose name he no longer even wears on his shirt. He was having the kind of game that suggested Southgate has found the right position for him and you felt that if a goalscoring opportunity came his way he looked in the mood to take it.

The second goal was a fine piece of plundering, with England turning the possession over in midfield rapidly and moving it from Dier to Kane to Sterling and back to Kane. His shot was classic Kane opportunism, one touch to move it away from his body and a shot quickly struck - albeit by no means unsaveable. Uzoho let it straight under his body.

After the break, England did not ave the dominance of the ball they had enjoyed in the first half and the early goal from Iwobi gave Nigeria the confidence they had been lacking. Nigeria had struggled before then to get their better players like Odion Ighalo, once of Watford, and Chelsea’s Victor Moses into the game.

It was Ighalo who held off Walker on 47 minutes and struck the post with a shot from Iwobi’s pass. The Arsenal man ran onto the rebound, doing well to thread it in past Pickford and the other England players in his way. Their German manager Gernot Rohr had made four changes at half-time, including bringing on Ahmed Musa, once Leicester City’s successor to N’Golo Kante. They had much better shape about them after that.

Southgate was slower to make the changes, eventually bringing on Loftus-Cheek and Danny Rose and then eventually Marcus Rashford and Danny Welbeck for Kane and Sterling. It had been a forgettable second half for Sterling who chased one ball into the penalty area and went down with a lamentable dive as Uzoho approached. The England striker was rightly booked by Italian referee Marco Guida, although Sterling was not the only Englishman whose intensity had flagged after the break.

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