Gareth Southgate was “very pleased” with England’s performance, although he did not lack “this bit of sharpness” in attack during a goalless draw with Italy.
The Three Lions and the Azzurri played a stalemate in the League of Nations against the empty stands as Southgate experimented against inexperienced European Champions League in the League of Nations.
England saw a lot of ball, especially in the second half, but struggled once again to break a stubborn defense.
After this, you could see that the players of Tammy Abraham were more interested in killing time than scoring more goals.
“We’ve relied too much on Harry and Raheem for our goals and other players need to get into that space,” he told Channel 4.
“Some of them do it with their clubs, but at the international level at the moment they have not managed to convert it, so we have seemed dangerous without getting the goals needed in the most important matches.”
England 0-0 Italy: The rating of the players of a League of Nations tied Molineux
However, Southgate insisted he was pleased with the overall performance and believes the lack of audience had an impact on the play.
“I don’t see how you can (call this performance prudent) because we were trying to move the ball against a very well organized team,” the England coach said.
“We put the ball in front of our players and gave them all a chance and we tried to refresh them because we know the state of the season we are in.
“So I think at the moment this bit of sharpness in the last third isn’t quite there, but I was pleased with the overall performance.”
He added: “You can’t ignore the fact that when you’re really pressing, and I thought in the second half that we were a much better team, you don’t have any audience to help you or press the opposition and it makes a big difference to the team”.
When asked who he thought performed well at Molineux, Southgate said: “Today I thought Aaron Ramsdale did very, very well, he has made a couple of very important stops and I thought his composure with the ball is exactly what we expected.
“I thought that Bukayo (Saka) also did very, very well and very happy that he came out of the minor injury he had and that will give us more depth in this area of the pitch.
“I thought James Ward-Prowse did well today, he used the ball well, he controlled the game, his pass was good, so I think there were some positive aspects of the players that we have to see.
“I thought Tammy (Abraham) was fine. “.