Frattesi dragged wastefully wide of the far post. Lorenzo Pellegrini played the pass and Davide Frattesi, who had run off the back of Declan Rice, was in up the right. There was the familiar 4-3-3 Italy shape, the assurance in possession and a massive early chance, which was slickly created and, when it was passed up, represented a let-off for England. No Leonardo Bonucci, Jorginho, Marco Verratti, Federico Chiesa, Ciro Immobile. Roberto Mancini named only two players who had started that night in his line-up here – Gianluigi Donnarumma and Giovani Di Lorenzo – and most of the big names were not involved. The virtually empty stadium was punishment for the violence and disorder which had marred the Euro 2020 final between the teams at Wembley, the reminders of that occasion seemingly everywhere, although not in the Italy team. There was more of the same when the visitors emerged for kick-off, when their names were read out and during spells when they had the ball. It felt as though we were back to the ghost games of the pandemic, even if the two thousand or so local school children who were allowed in tried to make themselves heard, beginning with when they booed the Italy players during the warm-up. The strangeness of the occasion was impossible to ignore. But it felt glass half-empty and, when it was over – the 0-0 having come to feel inevitable – there were boos from the 2,000 or so school children in attendance, a moment that required a double take. The positives took in a clean sheet for Aaron Ramsdale, embossed by an excellent save to deny Sandro Tonali, some nice crosses from Reece James and flickers from Mason Mount and Jack Grealish. Raheem Sterling squandered the clearest chance for England, scooping over from the point-blank range early in the second half.
It did not happen, the patterns too predictable and, when opportunity did knock, the conviction lacking in front of goal. What Southgate needed here – apart from a win – was for his players to show greater cohesion for longer periods, to take better care of the ball and ask questions of an experimental Italy team to pull them out of shape. There would be further moaning three days later when England drew in Germany, based on the disjointed nature of the performance rather than the encouraging late fight back. This is what happens when any mis-steps are taken and there was certainly one in the 1-0 defeat to Hungary in Budapest last Saturday. As Gareth Southgate observed on Friday, the noise around his England team does “seem extremely loud” and he did not mean it in a positive way.
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