It's clear where the English frustration comes from - we had a good start to the game and were showing that we could put the Italians under pressure, stifle their play and make things difficult for them - there was a sign of a game that could be won. And then it stopped. We could see that there was a route to potentially being able to win that game, if we'd taken the game to the opposition, rather than letting them bring their game to us for so long without responding.
If Italy had taken a hiding for the entire first half, they'd not have simply come back and tried to carry on as they were.
We saw from the start of the game that a lot of the Italian team were uncomfortable getting pressed and having players run at them, so when you've got Grealish, Sancho, Rashford and Saka all on the bench, why are we waiting until 70/75 minutes in, only to throw Saka and Henderson into the mix?
It felt like a total lack of ambition and an unwillingness to even try and play for the win. I think whilst people wouldn't have been happy, plenty would rather have seen us lose out to a second goal on the counter whilst we really tried to push for the win, as at least we'd have been giving it a go.
On the flip side, if we'd carried on like the start of the game, Mancini may have changed things up in a different manner - but that's exactly what we're frustrated about, Southgate's unwillingness to change it up and try something different when it was clear by the end of the first half that we were just going to be pinned back and we'd be hanging on.
