- The England boss admitted his side have been struggling from a lack of intensity
- The Three Lions stars were put through the paces in a yoga session on Friday
- LISTEN to It’s All Kicking Off! The Luke Shaw call by Gareth Southgate has been an absolute stinker! It was another mistake and left England so lopsided
Gareth Southgate has delivered a worrying fitness update ahead of England’s final group stage match against Slovenia on Tuesday, revealing his side are suffering from a lack of intensity because of the squad’s ‘physical condition’.
England have looked underwhelming, lacklustre and unconvincing so far at Euro 2024, narrowly defeating Serbia 1-0 in their opening game before drawing 1-1 against Denmark with a disappointing performance on Thursday.
With Luke Shaw still yet to play a minute of football since mid-February as he continues to recover from a hamstring injury, left-back has emerged a key problem area for Southgate with right-footed deputy Kieran Trippier struggling to offer natural width on the left flank.
Meanwhile, captain Harry Kane seems to be lacking a yard of pace after picking up a back injury while at Bayern Munich — and the Three Lions camp in general are feeling the strain in the wake what has been an immensely exhausting and congested domestic football season.
Revealing that his stars are not pressing from the front in the way he would have hoped heading into the tournament, Southgate delivered a concerning update and hinted at making a handful of changes ahead of Tuesday’s match with Slovenia.
‘We are not pressing well enough, with enough intensity,’ the Three Lions boss admitted. ‘We have limitations in how we can do that with the physical condition.
‘We cannot press as high up the pitch as we might have done in the qualifiers, for example. And not keeping the ball well enough. It is as simple as that. We have to keep the ball better and build with more control. Then we will be defending less and we’ll have more confidence.’
England’s stars were put through the paces in a yoga session on Friday, as Dr Rebekah ‘Zeena’ Jade was drafted in to improve their conditioning and speed up their recovery ahead of Tuesday’s game.
Southgate will hope the yoga can help with England’s lack of intensity on display in the opening two matches of Euro 2024.
Despite netting the opener, Kane endured a passive and frustrating game against Denmark before being substituted in the 70th minute.
Providing an update on Kane’s fitness and speaking on whether he will make wholesale changes against Slovenia, the manager said: ‘Harry’s only had one 90 minutes in five or six weeks.
‘We’ll have a look at everything (in terms of changes). We’ll look at the performance and look at the next opponent and find the best solutions for the next game.
‘We felt the right thing to do against Denmark was to give confidence to the players we picked in the first game. We had won the previous game.’