England take on Germany with their detractors back in their gleeful comfort zone

England play Germany in a bad mood and with knives drawn for manager Gareth Southgate. It’s almost as though his detractors are enjoying it.

So it turned out that England didn’t get the mood-setter they needed against Italy. That they lost this match shouldn’t have been that much of a surprise; England have only beaten Italy twice in 17 games over the last 45 years – a 2-1 win at Wembley a decade ago and a 2-0 win in Nantes at Le Tournoi, in 1997 – so to expect a win in Milan may have been a little on the optimistic side.

But there does come a point at which an expectation becomes a demand, and the menacing air that accompanies England has transferred itself onto Gareth Southgate since results stopped going their way. England are now five matches without a win, and it’s reasonable to say that knives have started to be pulled for the manager.

It feels like sections of the England support and the media are back in their comfort zone. For all the positive talk about Southgate’s team between 2018 and 2021, there was a substantial group who couldn’t wait for things to start going a little wrong, who’ve been preparing their lines for the last few years and are now ready to roll them out.

This talk should run into a brick wall as soon as England’s record within those three years is mentioned, but no…reaching the semi-finals of the World Cup and the Nations League can be safely dismissed because they had a ‘lucky draw’.

The Euro 2020 defeat, despite some excellent results on the way to the final, can also be dismissed because it ended in a loss, albeit it on penalty kicks at the end of the match. It’s a curious line of reasoning, that winning in knockout football can be dismissed because the draw wasn’t unkind enough, especially when those making that argument can often be the same people who crow the loudest when that sort of draw is made in the first place.

As such, the forthcoming Nations League match against Germany is infused with even more narrative than it might already have had. Never mind that this is already a dead rubber of a match; Germany cannot qualify for the finals of the tournament even with a win, while England have already been relegated. For fans of the Nations League (which we’re certain definitely exist), the big game comes in Budapest, where Hungary need only a draw to win the group while Italy need a win.

But even with its dead rubber status, England vs Germany matters; for England, at least. You may…