Former Manchester United defender and pundit Gary Neville has slammed Gareth Southgate's decision to not play Phil Foden in England's 0-0 draw against USA on Friday night. The Manchester City star was an unused substitute as the Three Lions failed to follow up their opening game thrashing of Iran.
It was the USA that seemed more likely to score out of the two sides in the clash, causing plenty of problems with their press and stopping England's key midfield men from gaining control of the game. Weston McKennie's skied effort and Christian Pulisic's strike that hit the bar was the closest either came to opening the scoring.
With England struggling to create, Neville questioned why Foden wasn't involved, telling ITV: "I know Phil Foden isn’t playing but for Phil Foden not to be playing for England is a real shame because he’s a massive talent. I think he’s our best player, our best talent by a mile. He should be playing in that team.”
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It was one of a number of decisions that were questioned by the England supporters, having brought on Jordan Henderson as one of the first set of substitutes. The likes of Jack Grealish and Marcus Rashford did come on, though many were still puzzled by the lack of an introduction to the game for Foden.
It was something Southgate clarified after the game, telling ITV: "We didn’t have that same zip [as against Iran]. That’s going to happen, it’s tournament football, we’re not just going to roll through and sweep through everyone where you have nights like that where you need to show different qualities to get a result
""We thought it was the right thing to do, to keep the team from the start, and then the wide players we went with Jack [Grealish] and Marcus [Rashford] ahead of Phil [Foden] on the changes. We thought, Jack would keep the ball well for us and get us up the pitch and Marcus' speed, we thought would also be a threat coming into that last part of the game."
The result means the Three Lions must avoid a 4-0 defeat or heavier against Wales in their final clash of the group stages to progress to the next round.
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