EXCLUSIVE: England struggling to deal with ‘weight of expectation’

Former England defender Danny Mills says the Three Lions are struggling to deal with the “weight of expectation” after another poor performance at Euro 2024.

Gareth Southgate’s side held on for a 1-1 draw with Denmark that keeps them at the top of Group C, but left fans and pundits angered by their less-than-impressive display.

Many star performers, including Harry Kane, Jude Bellingham and Declan Rice were off the pace in Frankfurt on Thursday.

England sat back once they had taken the lead and Denmark seized the initiative, equalised and were the better team for the remainder of the match.

Mills says a lot of pressure has been piled on the team following their final loss at Euro 2020, but he is not excusing the mistakes that were made against the Danes.

Speaking exclusively to 101 Great Goals on behalf of BetVictor, he said: “When Gareth came in, it took a lot of the pressure off the players to go and express themselves, but now it almost looks like the weight of expectation is weighing very, very heavily on some of those players.

“Players making poor decisions, giving the ball away unnecessarily at times all over the pitch, we got swamped in midfield.

“I mean where do you start? No energy, no guile. There’s so much more to come from those players out there.”@alanshearer has given a brutally honest assessment of England’s draw with Denmark 🗣#DENENG #Euro2024 pic.twitter.com/FYEVpqxSCq

— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) June 20, 2024

“Jude Bellingham is an absolute superstar, but it’s almost like he wants to do everything in the game, he’s almost trying too hard because of that expectation to go out and perform and win games.

“So I think there’s a little bit of that that’s crept back in. I think the expectation is huge and maybe the players are starting to feel that.

“All the stick that the manager has had and the fact that players now know that if they don’t win this tournament, the manager is going to get bombarded and they…

Source link : https://www.101greatgoals.com/news/england-euro-2024-danny-mills-exclusive/

Author : Mitch Fretton

Publish date : 2024-06-21 12:47:23

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