12 Dec Sam Allardyce says Harry Kane will face a fight to get over his penalty miss against France
Sam Allardyce says Harry Kane will face a fight to get over his penalty miss against France.
But the former England manager has backed the Three Lions skipper to come back, and also tipped Gareth Southgate to stay on in the job
Reflecting on last night’s 2-1 defeat, Big Sam told Mark Dolan on GB News: “It’s plain and simple – you can’t afford to miss the opportunities you create. And if you’ve got a penalty, you simply can’t afford to miss it. And of course, the most reliable penalty taker that we have in the team is Harry Kane, and unfortunately for him, the pressure was too much. Clearly, the pressure got to Harry in the end and it’s enormous pressure because I reckon if it was two-two, Harry would have scored it, to take us through but I think to bring us through at that stage, it was just a little too much.
“But it was a terrific performance, particularly in the second half by England, and they matched the world champions. There’s no doubt about that, in fact, they were better than the world champions in the second half. So there’s a lot to be positive about even though we don’t feel like it at the moment and certainly, the England team and the backroom staff will be very dejected on the back of the match.”
On how Kane will recover he said: “I will stick the next penalty on him when he gets home so we won’t have a problem with that. I think he’s that type of player and that type of character. While it will take him a while to get over it, he will go back to Tottenham and he will be the chief penalty taker. I think in the end, you know, you can’t be 100% as a penalty taker, unfortunately, you don’t want to miss it when it matters the most. And of course, it mattered the most in this particular game, and the sad thing for me was the second goal for France. I think that we could have avoided that. I think that we should have defended that better. And of course, because we didn’t we ended up behind again and getting a little bit desperate.
“But when we got that penalty, I felt that we were going to go into extra time again and see where we went from there.
On Gareth Southgate’s future he continued: “That will be determined by not just the FA, but the FA and Gareth themselves getting together. I think they are definitely connected together. And they will come together and review the whole of the tournament at the end of it and say, ‘where do we go from here?’ and I think that it would be more, for me, that Gareth would want to move on and let somebody else take over than it would be for the FA to actually look for somebody else. That’s my feelings at the moment.
“I’d be surprised if he’s not carrying on for at least the next two years. I think he looks at that team and there’s nothing better as a manager than looking at a team and saying, I have a very, very good squad and I have a very good team at international level.
“Every manager wants to work with the best and I think he’s the best England has had for many, many years. So I think he should stay with it as he grows with experience. He was inexperienced when he took over, but his experience has grown and grown as well as the young lads that joined him in that time and more young lads coming through so we are getting better and hopefully more resilient. And in the end, hopefully, we can clinch a tournament and that will have to be in a couple of years’ time.”
Tipping France to go on and win the World Cup he added: “Yes, I think France, I think that they’ve got the resilience and certainly the most experienced manager of all in the World Cup. “So I think France is the team to beat now.”
Meanwhile Sam also revealed he still believes he has a future in the dugout.
