In his exclusive column for CaughtOffside, former Liverpool attacker Stan Collymore discusses some of football’s biggest talking points, including England’s worrying second-half drop-offs, Reece James’ continued injury concerns and why it’s time for David De Gea to relinquish the number one jersey at Manchester United, plus much more.
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England have major flaw to fix…
The worrying thing for England is that the team seems to drop off in games with 20 minutes to go. They lose all intensity and it’s that period of the game that is arguably the most important part, especially in semi-finals and finals of major tournaments. We saw how England came undone against Croatia in 2018 and it’s obviously never been rectified because we are still seeing it now.
I know Gareth Southgate isn’t a big fan of making loads and loads of changes but knowing how much we drop off in the second half, he hasn’t got a choice but to mix things up. England are like the international version of PSG. Littered with top-quality players, some of which are arguably the best in the world in their positions, but for some reason, always seem to come up just that little bit short when it matters and I believe that’s because we don’t have the experience of playing high-intensity football for the duration of an entire match. PSG play against weak opposition week in and week out so when it comes to playing one of Europe’s big boys in the Champions League they inevitably lose out. The same happens with England and it shouldn’t because the squad is filled with Premier League and Champions League winners so Southgate really needs to get a grip of this and make sure he’s demanding that the team, whichever one he puts out, play with the same level of intensity throughout the entire match.
Worrying times for Reece James…
I’m not saying he is, but in football, you soon get a reputation for being a sick note so this latest injury setback for Reece James is a big worry.
He’s quite a well-built and muscular lad. I don’t know if he does much strength training in the gym but being so well developed means that your muscles and joints and tendons can go quite quickly, especially as a footballer that puts that much force on certain parts of the body.
During my career, I was very lucky. I suffered a few muscle tears here and there but nothing significant really but I do know that sometimes when you…
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