• 4 months ago
Dan Kilpatrick and Malik Ouzia react to England's defeat against Spain
Transcript
00:00Well, not to be again for England for the second time in three years, they've been beaten in agonising fashion in a European Championship final.
00:08Dan, what are your immediate reflections on another nearly night for Garry Salke's team?
00:13Yeah, I mean that's it really. I think England came up against the best team of the tournament and obviously the best team England have faced by far
00:21and they couldn't produce another miracle. I think when Cole Palmer equalised there was a kind of feeling,
00:26are they going to do it again? They just keep coming up with ways to get back in games and win games
00:31but I felt like they had to play better against a Spain team that might work against the Netherlands or Switzerland or Slovakia
00:37but it wasn't going to work against the Spain side. They're just too good, they're too clinical, they're too good at keeping the ball
00:42and talking of keeping the ball, Garry Salke's blamed the defeat on fatigue and England's age-old possession problem
00:49and it's hard to disagree really. England just couldn't get their foot on it, they couldn't get control of the football and you need that to win games.
00:56And of course, speaking of Garry Salke, his future now, I mean it was a question coming into the tournament, it's been a question throughout the tournament
01:03but we'll finally get an answer. He says he just needs to speak to some people behind the scenes, speak to his family, take a few days.
01:09What's your gut feel right now about what he's going to do?
01:15Oh, he put me on the spot there. I feel like he might stay. Purely a hunch.
01:23I think if you'd have asked me that at almost any other point during the tournament, before the Netherlands game anyway, I'd have said he's definitely going to go
01:31but I feel like he is excited by this group of young players and England have come very close again.
01:38They've done it without playing well and with much publicised, much talked about fitness problems to players like Kane and Bellingham in most of their defence
01:45so perhaps he thinks with better circumstances, with the team playing better, they can go all the way in the USA, Canada and Mexico in two years' time.
01:55But who knows? He came close to walking away after Qatar so it wouldn't be a huge surprise if he finally calls time now.
02:01I'll play devil's advocate then because I think he will go. I thought that coming into the tournament as I think we all did
02:08and maybe the mood shifted a little bit in the last week but I thought it would probably take the euphoria of winning tonight, feeling all the love again
02:16maybe putting some of that criticism from the start of summer in the background
02:19and if you've got the European champions and they're a young squad who probably weren't at their best this summer
02:24it would be a big thing to walk away two years out from the World Cup.
02:27As it is now, having lost two finals, I feel like it will feel a big old stretch to start that cycle again
02:33but hey, we'll see in the next few days. There'll be plenty more analysis over on standard sport
02:37and plenty more fallout to come from this game here in Berlin as well.

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