KEIR RADNEDGE at WEMBLEY: Thomas Tuchel’s focus on building ‘his’ England with a powerful team ethic could not hardly have been rewarded with more alacrity as they struck three times in the first 20 minutes in the friendly derby against Wales.
The final score remained 3-0 after a second half disrupted by the usual friendly-match flurry of substitutions. Wales created a couple of moments of danger but Jordan Pickford still achieved a record eighth clean sheet.
Tuchel’s words before the match had echoed the mantra of Sir Alf Ramsey in putting together the team who won the World Cup in 1966, back in the days before marketing demands insisted that the ‘FIFA’ label should be attached – and also, to be fair, before most sports had seized on the value of creating a world cup of their own.
England had confronted Wales without captain Harry Kane through injury and without Jude Bellingham and Phil Foden by choice, the one still regaining full dynamism after injury and the other after a lengthy lapse in form.
Victory in Latvia on Tuesday can lift England within reach of the World Cup finals when the time and space for experimentation will start to narrow so a trouble-free evening against Wales was important in a team context.
England needed only four minutes to make a mark. Anthony Gordon saw an angled shot deflected across goal by Darlow for a corner. Captain Declan Rice’s kick was headed down by John Stones, the ball was rescued off the byline by Marc Guehi and Morgan Rogers jabbed his first goal for England on his ninth appearance.
Seven more minutes and it was 2-0. Wales were embarrassed by another Rice corner, failed to clear and Rogers’s cross was popped into goal by Aston Villa club-mate Ollie Watkins. No rest for Wales. Saka scored a typical third in the 19th minute, cutting in from the right onto a Rice pass, wriggling to make space and curling a left foot shot up beyond Darlow’s right hand.
Tuchel, 52, has won six of his seven games since taking charge of England in January, with his sole defeat coming in a friendly against Senegal.
His one disappointment was the low-key response of England’s fans in the second half.
Tuchel said: “I love English football and I love English football fans and the support they give, but I think the atmosphere did not match the performance on the field.
“We had excellent support in Serbia, but [here] we were 3-0 up after 20 minutes, we had ball win after ball win after ball win and I felt like why is the roof still on the stadium? That’s just it, it’s nothing big.
“We will do everything again to be infectious, there’s no problem. I’m sure we will get everyone going – it is on us. But tonight I was a little underwhelmed.”
The teams
England: Pickford – Konsa, Stones, Guehi, Spence – Anderson, Rice – Saka, Rogers, Gordon – Watkins. Subs: Lewis-Skelly, J Henderson, Kane, Eze, Rashford, Burn, D Henderson, Gibbs-White, Loftus-Cheek, Bowen, Trafford, Quansah, O’Reilly.
Wales: Darlow – Ampadu, Rodon, B Davies – N Williams, Brooks, Wilson, Cullen, Dasilva – Johnson, Moore. Subs: King, Lawlor, Mepham, Koumas, Colwill, Cabango, James, Harris, Thomas, Davies, Sheehan, Broadhead, Kpakio, Colwill
Referee: Schnyder [Swz]. VAR: Fähndrich [Swz]
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