England vs Senegal: Gareth Southgate urges his players to improve from set-pieces

The Three Lions had a positive group stage campaign, which saw them top Group B with seven points from three games.

England players celebrate a goal, Credit: Twitter/@England
By Karthik Raman | Dec 4, 2022 | 3 Min Read follow icon Follow Us

England will begin their knockout duty with an intriguing contest against Senegal in the FIFA World Cup 2022. The Three Lions had a positive group stage campaign, which saw them top Group B with seven points from three games. They are one of the few teams that are still left undefeated in the competition. Their reward for finishing top of their group is a round-of-16 contest against Senegal. The African champions cannot be taken lightly, as they have already demonstrated what they are capable of. They finished second with six points in Group A and are heading into this contest on the back of winning their last two games.

As a result, England have to be at the top of their game in every department to get past them in the last-16 stage. In order to do that the Three Lions have to improve one area of their game significantly – set pieces. England have registered a total of nine goals in their three group games but only two of those have come from set pieces. England head coach Gareth Southgate believes it is an area where they need to improve as they prepare for knockout football. 

When asked if they had been paying closer attention to them ahead of this contest, Southgate replied: “No more than we normally do.” He added at his pre-match press conference: “We haven’t been as effective from set-pieces as we would have liked to have been yet, so there’s definitely more improvement needed from us on that. Set-pieces and even throw-ins, those small details, every team in the world are trying to get better and better at all the time.”

Read More – England vs Senegal: Harry Kane eyeing his first goal of FIFA World Cup 2022 as Three Lions prepare for African champions

Gareth Southgate on penalty shootout

If it is knockout football, then the possibility of the game heading to a penalty shootout is always there. However, England’s most recent shootout happened last year in the final of Euro 2020 when Italy defeated them. “We’re prepared. We’ve had a process that we’ve followed,” Southgate said. “We’ve won two of three shootouts and looked at how we can improve. But of course, there are so many other aspects we have to get right. We’re aiming to win the game in 90 minutes and to avoid extra time and penalties. But if we need to go beyond that we have to be ready mentally and physically. I believe we are.”

Eric Dier recalls shootout win over Colombia 

England defender Eric Dier reckoned that the penalty shootout victory over Colombia in the round-of-16 stage in Russia 2018 helped the Three Lions massively. “There are ifs, buts and maybes aren’t there,” he explained. “I feel like that World Cup, it’s difficult for me to say because I was involved, but I felt in that game we broke down a lot of mental barriers and stereotypes that exist in English football surrounding things like knockout games and penalty shootouts and playing against that type of opposition as well.

“I think that game I remember it felt at the time like it was a weight off our shoulders and I think you saw that in the next game against Sweden (in the quarter-final). No one was talking about us winning it and that game was a moment in which we all felt like we had got over a few hurdles and now we were free to just play and some of the weight of history had been removed from our backs.”





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