Aston Villa and Newcastle United fans have every right to feel a sense of frustration and anger at how their players were treated at Euro 2024.
Anthony Gordon had 21-goal involvements in the Premier League for an injury-hit Newcastle United side last season, but only played a few minutes at this summer’s major tournament in Germany.
As for Aston Villa’s Player of the Season, he played less than an hour in total and didn’t start a single game under England manager Gareth Southgate.
As mentioned before, Ollie Watkins has every right to be fuming with Southgate because it has now been confirmed that Harry Kane wasn’t fit all tournament long, yet he kept on playing and starting!
Phil Foden was the Premier League’s Player of the Season for Manchester City, but registered zero goals and assists, but once again, he also continued to play and start every game.
For the final itself, England were stuck, they couldn’t get out, nor did they have an outlet because Bukayo Saka was the only one who could run in behind and he wasn’t even doing that.
Gary Neville spoke post-match about how England had a ‘counter-attacking strategy’, as he told ITV Sport.
But ‘we didn’t have the pace on the break to carry the ball forward quickly enough’, as he highlighted Gordon and Watkins sitting on the bench.
Nothing but the pure truth from the former right-back, with Villa’s star man coming on after an hour and Gordon, once again, remaining on the bench, staring at the stars and watching his talent go to waste.
Ollie Watkins and Anthony Gordon at Euro 2024
“We did keep possession in some games, but we were playing against inferior opposition,” said Neville. “We tried to win in moments. You can win games in moments.
“As I said at half-time, we had a counter-attacking strategy by playing deep and defending compactly. But we didn’t have the pace on the break to carry the ball forward quickly enough, so it was a bit of a catch-22 for us where we stuck in between trying to keep possession as a team, with the players we had on the pitch.
“But actually sat deep and we couldn’t get up the pitch because we didn’t have the Gordon or the Watkins on the pitch. I feel that was a factor in the game as well. It’s so hard to play without the ball.”
England’s attacking talent
It’s bad enough that players like Foden and Kane were off it, well off it, yet they kept on playing.
But to now find out that Kane was half-fit, yet he continued to start is beyond pathetic and Southgate deserves all the verbal beating he gets for that one.
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It’s not like England don’t have the attacking talent. Cole Palmer had the time of his life for Chelsea, Watkins helped Unai Emery guide Aston Villa to the Champions League, and Jarrod Bowen scored 16 for a defensive-minded manager in David Moyes.
Yet, the West Ham star didn’t see the sunlight again because he was never used after the first two group matches.
All in all, a lot of England’s attacking talent has been wasted, once again!
But in the end, England deserved to lose to Spain in the final of Euro 2024 and no one can have any complaints.
