England 1 – 2 Greece
Jordan Pickford had an erratic performance in goal as England fell to an embarrassing home defeat to Greece in this Uefa Nations League Group B2 game at Wembley on Thursday night.
England interim head coach, Lee Carsley, named a really attacking team with John Stones named captain.
Carsley says John Stones “deserves” to be picked as captain with regular skipper Harry Kane not fit to start.
“It’s a brilliant achievement for John, something he deserves,” said Carsley.
He hinted when he announced the squad that the height and width of the team would come from the wide players and not the full-backs meaning that he would have the chance to play the trio of Jude Bellingham, Cole Palmer and Phil Foden in one team.
But in the first half, it hadn’t clicked for England. The fluidity and the understanding aren’t there. Saying that, they’ve had chances. Defensively it’s slightly worrying. If we were playing against one of the superpowers of football, then we’d be going in behind.
And within a few minutes of the restart, Pickford was beaten far too easily by Vangelis Pavlidis and the England All-Stars were behind to Greece at Wembley for the first time ever. And a second goal a few minutes later was embarrassing but ruled out for offside.
England huffed and puffed but the attacking lineup just couldn’t do what was needed, while Greece got the ball past Pickford four times in all — three goals disallowed. But a late strike by Jude Bellingham spared Everton blushes before the end.
But in added time, more embarrassing defending saw Pickford beaten again and this time it was not going to be ruled out, giving Greece a famous win.
England: Pickford, Alexander-Arnold, Stones, Colwill, Lewis, Rice, Bellingham, Saka (51′ Madueke), Palmer, Foden (72′ Solanke), Gordon (60′ Watkins).
Subs: Pope, Henderson, Walker, Livramento, Guehi, Jones. Gallagher, Gomes.