Time for me to sign off. Thanks for your company and correspondence. It’s been quite a day for England supporters: a six-hour rave disguised as a Test match, followed by a nice calm stint in the chill-out zone watching the football. Do join us again in the morning for the cricket, or if you can’t handle all that excitement, drop in on Monday night when I’ll be watching England take on North Macedonia at Old Trafford.
Here’s Rob Knap, picking up on Mary Waltz’s email (45 min). “I tend to agree with Mary’s comment,” he says, “it’s difficult to get excited about this kind of mismatch, though always good to see players like TAA and Saka in full flow. In fact, it’s the selection which is most interesting. I know this is hardly novel to suggest Maguire is lucky to get a start, but, well, Maguire is lucky to start. Perhaps it’s because Southgate knew it would be a fairly easy run-out, and he can work the ball better than Mings when he moves up the pitch (as you said in the commentary).” Both were good at that tonight.
“But I wonder what Mings is thinking after the season he’s had. Confession: I’m a Villa fan, but having seen them play several times this year (and previously had doubts about him), I feel he’s really tightened up his game and looks as good a defender as we’ve had for a long time. He’s been simply superb for Villa – as Southgate will know. However good a guy Maguire is, I imagine easy to manage, etc, and he’s clearly a good player too, despite the troubles he’s had recently, I just find it odd that Southgate carries on picking him when he’s hardly played and there are (Mings I think, others are available!) much better alternatives based on current form, mindset, etc.
“Keep up the good work, and hope to see you on the OBO during the Ashes too!” Ha, thanks, I’ll be there, as long as the Aussies haven’t given up and gone home before the third Test.
Trent Alexander-Arnold is talking to Kelly Somers of Channel 4. “I love playing football,” he says, “I love representing my country. To play the full 90, I was happy… and I’ll remember that one, yeah.”
The goal? “First touch was a bit sloppy. I just thought, go across the keeper. It was about making sure you hot the target.”
Does this position – midfield – get the best out of him? He hesitates. “I dunno. It feels comfortable. For me, it’s more getting into this team.” What would he say is his best position now? “I don’t know! Hopefully I’m one of those players that can be used in different positions. I’m not too bothered where I play as long as I’m playing. I try and bring what I bring to the game, which is creativity and goals. No matter what position I’m in, I’ll give it my all.” He adds, generously: “the manager has always tried to get me into the team”.
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If it was excitement you were after this evening, the place to be was North Macedonia. They went 2-0 up in the first half against Ukraine, then conceded three (and a red card) in the second.
“Not sure England have ever been 0-0 with Malta after 70 minutes,” says Simon McMahon (72 min). “Though of course they have, famously, trailed San Marino. Maybe James Maslen is confusing England with Scotland?”
FULL TIME! Malta 0-4 England
Job done. England maintain their immaculate record in the Euro qualifiers, which now consists of three wins out of three. The star of the show was Trent Alexander-Arnold, playing at inside-right, engineering the first goal and scoring the second.
90+2 min Rashford bursts towards the box, gets tripped, and doesn’t win a free kick. He’s been bright, with his passing more than anything.
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90 min Is there much more of this, the Fleet Street copytakers used to ask us. Not too much: three more minutes.
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88 min “God save the king,” sing the England fans. Last time they were in Malta, they were singing “We’re fucking shit.” The song doesn’t remain the same, but the scoreline may well do.
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85 min Well, we got the goal I was asking for, albeit via a miscarriage of justice. And now we nearly get the Eze goal I was after. He starts the move, feeding Rashford, whose low left-foot shot is parried by the keeper. It comes out to Eze, who has a thicket of defenders in front of him: his shot is on target but easily kept out.
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GOAL! Malta 0-4 England (Wilson 84)
Wilson sends the keeper the wrong way and passes the ball into the corner.
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Penalty to England!
Given! The ref was sent to the monitor, but it’s a very harsh decision as the defender, Borg, was about three feet from Wilson’s foot as he crossed. Wilson is going to take the pen too.
81 min Alexander-Arnold is still doing what he did early on, playing ambitious passes and getting most of them right. He releases Wilson, who thinks he has a shout for handball as his cross is blocked…
78 min Come on England, get another goal. Preferably scored by Eze.
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76 min Another sub for Malta: Jurgen Degrabriele replaces Jodi Jones, who’s been “probably Malta’s best player on the night” according to the nearest C4 pundit.
73 min The moment of the match for Man United fans. Maguire’s long crossfield ball releases Rashford, who jinks to the byline, only to be shepherded away for a corner. The corner reaches Maguire’s head, but he can’t get much impetus behind it.
72 min “Not that long ago,” says James Maslen, “a match like this would be 0-0 as an unimaginative England side looked to find a goal. Now we seem to destroy teams like this.”
69 min A nice moment as Maddison gives way to Eberechi Eze, who becomes the 90th player used by Gareth Southgate.
66 min England have switched to more of a 3-3-1-3, with Guehi at left-back and Maguire at RCB rather than left, because of Mings being left-footed. The front three are Foden, Wilson and Rashford who nearly combine for a goal now. Rashford comes deep and flicks a pass to Foden. He looks up to see who’s in space and finds Wilson, whose shot is blocked.
64 min Subs for Malta too: Kristensen and Nwoko off, Nikolai Muskat and Alexander Satariano on.
63 min Mings announces himself with a line-breaking ball that has Andy Townsend murmuring “Great pass”.
More subs! Kane off...
Kane, Henderson and Shaw bow out. Rashford, Callum Wilson and Tyrone Mings come on.
60 min A similar mistake at the other end allows Foden to feed Kane, who skews his shot when it might have been easier to score.
58 min A mistake by Harry Maguire, who rolls the ball to the nearest opponent, but Malta can’t make him pay.
55 min Malta’s ambition for this half may be to get a shot away, but first they’re going to have to get hold of the ball.
51 min I’m trying to work out what England’s formation is now. In possession, ie all the time, it seems to be 2-4-1-2-1, with TAA as the piggy in the middle.
49 min After some scrapping in midfield, Henderson plays a fine ball down the left to Kane, who is not quite quick enough to make anything of it.
47 min Malta have made a change too, with Yannick Yankam replacing Matthew Guillaumier in the centre of midfield.
Sub! Foden for Saka
Saka is off to nurse that sore ankle, with Phil Foden coming on – the first appearance tonight by a Man City player.
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Half-time! Malta 0-3 England
45+1 min Saka and Trent are hitting it off. Another through ball brings a run and a shot, well saved by Bonello. And that’s half-time, with England enjoying a cruise in the Mediterranean.
45 min “Greetings from California,” says Mary Waltz. “Normally most international competitions draw my interest. And I tried my best to justify committing 2 hours to this match. But the disparity in talent makes it very hard to watch.”
42 min Malta get a sniff of a through ball, only to find Marc Guehi blocking the runner’s run, as if he was playing his 54th international, not his fourth.
41 min Luke Shaw shows determination, twice, to win a 50/50 ball. Take that, Mourinho.
38 min Marcus Rashford (who has a slight hip injury himself) was warming up, but Saka is back on now.
36 min There’s nearly another penalty as Saka goes down after a slick move concocted by Alexander-Arnold, Kane and Saka himself. And he stays down, with what looks like a very sore ankle.
34 min The third goal came only 96 seconds after the second. And it was Harry Kane’s 50th competitive goal for England.
John Potter is back for more. “Any chance,” he says, “you could redact my TAA comment from earlier?” The MBM makes idiots of us all.
GOAL! Malta 0-3 England (Kane pen 31)
Down the middle and into the net! Kane aims where the keeper’s head was a moment earlier; Bonello dives, so he has no chance.
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Penalty to England!
Kane is brought down and the ref has no hesitation.
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29 min The shot was a rasping one from 25 yards. There won’t be an official assist as the previous touch came from a defender, but credit to Maddison for a gorgeous turn just before that.
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GOAL! Malta 0-2 England (Alexander-Arnold 28)
Just make him Player of the Match now.
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25 min Malta snap at enough heels to win the ball and break down the right. Jones does well before England regain possession. It’s like a third-round cup tie in which one team just have more time than the other.
23 min The free kick committee holds a meeting, with Alexander-Arnold and Trippier taking part and Shaw making sure they’re quorate. They all leave it to Maddison, whose effort is accurate but anodyne.
21 min Harry Maguire is playing in midfield. He slips a nice ball through to Maddison, who goes down in a heap under Apap.
17 min TAA is playing inside-right. Henderson, his counterpart on the left, is dropping deeper as Shaw roams forward, almost playing left-wing.
14 min The goal has had the effect you might have guessed: England are looking very relaxed.
11 min So the TAA ploy has paid off already. The ball he played was basically a cross, rotated through 90 degrees. It started near the halfway line, went straight forward and released Saka, who just had to play it square into the six-yard box for Kane – though the final touch does seem to have come from Apap.
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GOAL! Malta 0-1 England (Kane? 8)
Trent! He plays a glorious through ball to Bukayo Saka, who shovels it across for either Kane or a defender to get the final touch.
8 min Malta get into the England area! But they are thwarted by a neat clearance from Kieran Trippier.
7 min A shot! From Kane, with his left foot, after the corner. On target but easily saved.
6 min Luke Shaw goes long, in a classy way, as he spots a run from Jordan Henderson, who is crowded out by the Maltese defenders. Then Alexander-Arnold makes a lovely run down the right, lobs a cross in and wins a corner.
4 min Nothing comes of the free kick, and soon Maddison is conceding one himself as he clatters into Ferdinando Apap.
3 min Harry Maguire finds a perpendicular pass to James Maddison, who goes down and wins a free kick.
1 min England are dominating possession already, knocking the ball around at the back. An early touch for TAA, who is wearing No 10.
This is Gareth Southgate’s 84th match in charge, and the 19th time he has picked Trent Alexander-Arnold.
The captains exchange pennants. Harry Kane is the younger of the two, by some way: Steve Borg, who may well be marking him, is 35.
We have an email! “So Gareth wants to see from TAA ‘just what he does for his club’?” says John Potter. “So we can expect his man drifting off him when he switches off to give Malta a goal?” Ha.
”Enjoy the game!”
Time for the anthems, each led by a child. The England players just about remember to sing “king” not “queen”.
Gareth Southgate is talking to Channel 4. “First, we’ve got to win the game… They’ll be stubborn opponents tonight.”
Was it difficult to pick the right team? “Not so difficult. The players have been excellent, really focused.”
What does he want to see from Trent Alexander-Arnold? “Just what he does every week for his club, really. He’s a fabulous player with the ball, and his range of passing and his vision could give us something different, so we’re excited to see it… What is going to be different is the out-of-possession. It’s a different intensity in midfield, different angles of approach, but he’s an intelligent boy. The real key is to try and get him in the areas where he’s been with his club, centrally. And he’s so dangerous in those wider areas too, so we want him to have that freedom.”
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Malta team: Jodi Jones leads the line
Malta play two strikers and one of them is Jodi Jones, who, in his other role as a wing-back, was among Notts County’s heroes when they won promotion to the Football League.
Malta (3-5-2ish) Bonello; Apap, S Borg (capt), Attard; Mbong, Guillaumier, Teuma, Kristensen, Z Muscat; Nwoko, Jones.
Subs: M Grech, Debono, Camenzuli, K Shaw, J Grech, Satariano, Corbalan, N Muscat, Degabriele, Yankam, Dimech, J Borg.
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England team: TAA as an attacking midfielder
As widely expected, Trent Alexander-Arnold is picked in midfield for the second time in a stop-start England career. Last time he started there, against Andorra in 2021, he stopped after 45 minutes. Will he last longer tonight? And is this move needed, given that he now plays half in midfield when named at right-back? We shall see.
England (4-3-3ish) Pickford; Trippier, Guéhi, Maguire, L Shaw; Alexander-Arnold, Rice, Henderson; Saka, Kane (capt), Maddison.
Subs: Ramsdale, Johnstone, Walker, Stones, Mings, Phillips, Gallagher, Foden, Eze, Wilson, Grealish, Rashford.
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Preamble
Hello and welcome to live coverage of England’s Euro qualifier in Malta. And it’s not just the host nation that is the underdog here. Spare a thought for football itself, gamely doing its best to struggle along in the shadow of the Ashes. Even tonight’s crowd will be left in the shade by the cricket – there will be 17,000 people in the Ta’ Qali National Stadium, as against 25,000 on a rip-roaring day at Edgbaston.
For England’s footballers, this should be a freebie. If you can see off Italy and Ukraine, you can surely marmalise Malta … except that sport doesn’t work like that. And Malta, once the whipping boys of Europe, have gradually become quite hard to thrash.
They haven’t conceded more than twice in any of their past seven games, and have even won two of them (beating Israel 2-1 and Luxembourg 1-0, both in friendlies). Their Euro qualifiers have ended in defeat but not in disgrace, with a 1-2 away to North Macedonia followed by a 0-2 at home to Italy. That said, their record in Euro qualifiers is played 112, won 4, drawn 14, lost 88. So yes, England are firm favourites.
Gareth Southgate has now been in his job so long that this is his third meeting with Malta. Last time he was there, in 2017, he had to listen to England’s travelling supporters singing “We’re fucking shit,” a refrain that continued even after four second-half goals turned a banana skin into a breeze. This time, the fans may be a bit more on his side.
Kick-off is at 7.45pm BST (8.45pm in Malta) and I’ll be back about 55 minutes before that with the teams.
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