Rio Ferdinand admits he was left frustrated by England boss Gareth Southgate as the Three Lions fell to an agonising defeat by Italy in the Euro 2020 final at Wembley.
England looked to be in control of the European Championship final when Luke Shaw gave them the lead in just the second minute as they hoped to win a major trophy for the first time in 55 years.
Yet despite producing an excellent first half display, England struggled during the second half and laboured in attack as they quickly lost control of the tie before Leonardo Bonucci equalised for Roberto Mancini’s outfit as the game ended 1-1 in 90 minutes.
Southgate waited until extra-time to bring on playmaker Jack Grealish, while only bringing on fellow forwards Jadon Sancho and Marcus Rashford in the dying stages of the 30 minutes with a view to use them for penalties.
The plan backfired though when Sancho, Rashford and Bukayo Saka missed their spot-kicks to allow Italy to triumph 3-2 on penalties at Wembley Stadium.
Ferdinand believes that although Southgate made many bold and correct calls during the tournament, he had made the wrong decisions in the final.
‘Mancini went into half-time and he used that 15 minutes better than Gareth Southgate did. He changed the personnel, he allowed his wide player, [Federico] Chiesa, to come more central in order to link up with [Lorenzo] Insigne, brought off [Ciro] Immobile and that’s when you need a reaction from our manager,’ Ferdinand said on his Rio Ferdinand Presents FIVE YouTube channel.
‘That’s the moment in the game where you need the manager to go, “You know what? I’ve seen this now, let me change things.” For me personally, he changed the formation, still didn’t change things, didn’t alter the running of the game, especially in the second half.
‘They got a stranglehold on the game, we were camped in our own half. [Harry] Kane, who was immense in the first half, it was like night and day in the second half because the team were forced back so deep.
‘We’ve absolutely gone over the hills and up mountains congratulating and applauding the manager for making decisions at this tournament, whether it be formation changes or personnel changes and this was a game where he was probably letting himself down in that sense.
‘When they score, they have momentum. I just feel – and again, hindsight is a great thing – but that was the moment to introduce a [Jack] Grealish or a Sancho or a Rashford. Bring these guys on.
‘We saw when Grealish came on and it’s just frustrating because you know the talent we’ve got on the bench. All we’ve been talking about is that our biggest strength is our bench, the depth of our squad that they can come on and maintain the level of performance that we need and can bring different things to the table and they weren’t allowed to do that in the biggest game.
‘They did it in all the other games. In the biggest game, Gareth Southgate seemed like he froze and just thought: “Let me just get to penalties and hope for the best.”
‘I’d like to have seen him go out on his sword and say, “Do you know what? I’m gonna throw these boys in. They’ve done me good and done me proud leading up to this point.”’
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