Penalty Pain Again

Well, not so well, we blew it again on penalties. It was very painful to see three penalties missed. The first miss was the worst as it was off target. Woeful. The next two were down to some extent to good goal keeping by the Italian giant keeper, Donnarumma, who is a hero. So is Jordan Pickford, who was magnificent and did not deserve to lose a penalty shoot out. It is sad for Saka and Sancho. They were not ready for this occasion, boys out of their depth. After two misses, Saka looked so nervous, and deep down I knew he was going to fail. Sadly he did, but I blame Gareth Southgate for putting him in this painful position. (I understand that he has now taken responsibility for this gamble.) Three misses will be remembered and not forgotten; the forlorn three (Rashford, Sancho and Saka) will be forgiven but they will carry the pain all of their days.

Roberto Mancini was the master manager. Southgate is still learning his trade. Yes, he has done wonderfully well and deserves praise for England performances, but his selection of penalty takers was unwise. Mancini's decisions at half time were magnificent and Italy were the better team with England on the back foot and struggling to retain the ball. Look at the possession stats. Italy were putting England under pressure and causing problems. England failed in the second half to make much impression on the Italian goal. Kane had no service and dropped deep in a midfield overrun by Italian maestros. Chiesa was brilliant. When Jordan Henderson came on as a substitute I knew that England would not win. He was not up to the job, not at that stage of the game.

 Roberto Mancini is now a national hero and his record is impressive, excellent. He will go down as one of the great head coach/managers in Football History.

 It did not help England when the referee failed to look closely at the monitor to review the Jorginho tackle on Grealish. Jorginho should not have been allowed to play on. A red card, in the opinion of many commentators and a former referee, was justified. It was a very bad and reckless tackle. Somehow it was not given, even with state of the art technology. Italy were, when all is said and done, the better side on the day. Even at Wembley, home turf, England could not win. The trophy did not come home, but will now go to Rome. That hurts!