René van der Gijp is certainly not impressed by the English national team. While The the Dutch Summer from SBS6 the analyst expressed a very critical view of the actions of the Three Lions in Group D against the Czech Republic (0-1 win). In particular, the slow build-up from the back was a thorn in the side of Van der Gijp, because it means, among others, Jack Grealish ‘does not have enough ball possession’.
“I’ve been watching the English now, and it all goes so slowly”, Van der Gijp opens his critical note. “You have Harry Maguire with John Stones and then you have Kalvin Phillips with Declan Rice. Then the keeper plays the ball to Maguire… And I don’t like that, dude, eighty million… I don’t understand why he doesn’t just open up and look. The only thing he has eyes for is Stones, who gets the ball. But Stones doesn’t want to be stuck with the ball, and he returns the ball. And then Maguire has a problem,” said Van der Gijp, who then explained that the wrong people, including Kyle Walker, are constantly on the ball.
“All that stuff in the back is at the expense of Jack Grealish, Bukayo Saka and our friend Harry Kane. It just takes and takes for that ball to finally get to them. Then we hit it with Daley Blind, because he does play to the right guys at once and he skips lines. And then England also have Jordan Henderson, but that’s not much better in terms of build-up.”
“That Grealish really only gets a ball when the entire stadium already knows: now he goes to Grealish”, continued Van der Gijp. “It just goes so slowly and that is really disastrous for those who can play football in that team. It’s only a fraction of a second that Grealish can break free against such an opponent, but none of them see it. No, the Dutch really doesn’t have to worry about England,” concluded the analyst.
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