Belgium have beaten England to top Group G
The final group game of the 2018 World Cup was settled by Adnan Januzaj. The former Manchester United winger scored a stunning goal to give Belgium a 1-0 win over England and set-up a last-16 tie against Japan. England, as group runners-up, will play Colombia, the winners of Group H.
It was hard to take anything meaningful from the game, particularly the first half, which rivalled France’s dull draw with Denmark as the most forgettable match of an otherwise exciting tournament.
However, Gareth Southgate perhaps learned that he was right to select Jordan Henderson ahead of Eric Dier in England’s previous group games.
Henderson has received praise for his performances at the tournament so far. He sprayed a few nice passes against Tunisia when given space and time, but was crowded out after the North Africans tinkered their formation and cut off space to England’s midfielders. Against Panama, Henderson was involved in some of England’s goals and had a comfortable afternoon against one of the poorest sides to feature at the tournament.
The Liverpool captain isn’t exactly the English Sergio Busquets some pundits seem to think he is, but he has worked extremely hard at the tournament and was given the night off against Belgium. Judging by Dier’s performance, Henderson will be back in the team for the tie against Colombia.
The Tottenham midfielder had an off-night. His passing wasn’t particularly crisp, he struggled to cope with the physicality of the Belgium midfield and he just looked off the pace in the opening spell. England’s captain for the game struggled to impose himself on the match in the second-half as England searched for an equaliser. Football statistics website Whoscored gave Dier’s performance a 6.1 out of 10, the lowest of any England outfield player who started the game.
His performance was well-received by those watching at home.
In the RTE studio, pundit Eamon Dunphy called Dier a “terrible player” – which was completely unfair – and compared him unfavourably to Aston Villa and Ireland midfielder Glenn Whelan.
"Dier, this fella is a terrible player. I don't know how he's in the team, he's the 'English Glenn Whelan'" -Eamon Dunphy #WorldCup #ENG #BEL
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) June 28, 2018
Other people weren’t that harsh, but still weren’t impressed with Dier.
Yeah Dier is much better player than Henderson 😳😳😳
— Stephen Elliott (@SleevesElliott) June 28, 2018
Dier is everything Twitter tells you Henderson is
— david (@dshanahan930) June 28, 2018
https://twitter.com/BainsXIII/status/1012405662062645248
https://twitter.com/TheJackyCalv/status/1012402843813367808
Hard to make sweeping judgements on 20 minutes of a largely rotated England side.. so I will. Henderson appears a better fit than Dier, whereas Rose should be ahead of Young. #eng
— Andrew Gaffney (@GaffneyVLC) June 28, 2018
