Belgium 2 – 0 England

England crashed out of the Nations League following a 2 – 0 defeat to the world number 1 ranked team Belgium.

Despite the 2 – 0 loss, Manager Gareth Southgate and pundits alike seemed to take more positives than negatives from the game.

In a way I can see why but I also think you have to look at the negatives as well when you suffer a defeat.

For me it raised a lot of questions about England’s best team and certainly which system we should be using.

We certainly dominated possession of the football but was that because we were the dominant team or because Belgium were happy to sit back and defend their lead? A bit of both I think.

And despite having a lot of shots and creating a lot of half chances, was Kane’s header that was cleared off the line the only real clear cut chance or am I being a bit harsh there?

The team selection was relying too much on certain individuals for creativity. Grealish needed to pull off a bit of magic or Kane create something for himself. The best two chances came from Trippier deliveries with Kane’s header from the corner and the cross for Grealish. But can England continue to play like that against the better teams and hope to keep a clean sheet and create from set plays?

Grealish for me was the star man on both teams. Not everything he did came off but he is always looking to create, take players on and try things in dangerous areas. He is brave with the ball and is just what England have been crying out for, for a long a time.

The amount of fouls he wins as the opposition just can’t handle him is quite frankly unbelievable. He grew in confidence as the game went on and you can see that he now truly believes that he belongs on this stage. Bad news for Aston Villa as I’m pretty sure one of the big boys will come in for him in the summer.

Sometimes he makes the wrong decision in and around the box by passing when he should shoot or shooting when he should pass or the thing he does most for me is sometimes has that extra touch while he’s trying to decide what to do. I can live with that but if he did just improve slightly on that then it is frightening how good he can become.

The goals England conceded were poor. Dier gave the ball away poorly and although two lucky deflections still only just took the ball past Pickford, I think it was a poor goal to concede.

The free kick for me was never a free kick, even in this day and age. Rice won the ball and was then kicked. The referee had a good view on the incident. I hope he saw it differently to how we did on the replays otherwise the game has truly gone.

The free kick was struck well but I can’t understand what was happening with that wall and if they had all jumped I still think there is some debate as to whether it would have actually hit them or not.

The free kick was a poor decision from the ref and I felt he made a lot of poor decisions throughout that all seemed to go against England. There could easily have been a second yellow dished out but I think he bottled that one and I also feel Grealish won even more fouls than the stats suggest.

I am hopeful that Southgate will have now seen that you can’t pick Henderson and Rice together as England’s midfield two. Or any combination of similar type players and it needs someone in there with more about them on the ball.

Henderson was truly terrible yesterday and I thought that Southgate had seen that and seen that it needed changing there and that’s why he was withdrawn at half time but it seems Henderson had a muscle injury and that is the only reason for that change.

Without doubt we looked a lot better with Winks in there who is always looking and willing to pass forward.

It seems an unpopular opinion these days but Jordan Henderson would get nowhere near this England team for me.

Rice offers more than Henderson for me if you have to pick one of them. He breaks up play better and even though both pass backwards and sideways more than forwards, Rice does it quickly and keeps play moving. Henderson takes too long and even runs to just about where he is going to pass to at times because he doesn’t have the pass in his locker.

Whipping boys Iceland next on Wednesday and the question is should Southgate have another look at some fringe players or play his best team as there aren’t that many matches now before the Euro’s.

System wise as well he has a lot to think about. Does he stick with this or try something else? For me he has to decide which system will get all England’s better players in to the team.

He’s going with three centre halves because he thinks they are all a bit dodgy in a two but I think we concede against the better teams no matter what so he needs to balance up whether more attacking players would cause too many problems for the already shaky defence or if it might enable us to just go out and outscore our opponents.