Jose Mourinho has claimed Jordan Pickford suffered from a ‘lack of concentration’ in the first-half against Denmark and was to blame for the goal England conceded. Pickford made errors before the goal, twice giving away possession to Denmark on the edge of his own box and Mourinho highlighted his shaky start and said he should have done better with Damsgaard’s goal.
Jose Mourinho said: “Earlier on, even before Denmark’s opener, Jordan Pickford was showing some nerves and a bit of a lack of concentration. I saw the mistake arriving, but apart from that I didn’t see one England player who didn’t play well or very well.”
Pickford and England recovered from the 30th minute setback with an own goal from Simon Kjaer restoring parity to the scoreline nine minutes later. Harry Kane scored the winner in extra time, sliding in a rebound after missing a penalty to send England into their first final since the 1966 World Cup triumph. Asked about the Three Lions’ response after going behind to set up a final clash with Italy, manager
Gareth Southgate said: “That’s down to him (Jordan). We just talked to the whole group about avoiding the sorts of needless mistakes that created some tension in that first half. We played some short passes and were a little bit slow on some of the moments of transition when they were able to press us and win the ball back very quickly when we had just won it. Most of the opportunities they had were from counter-attacks when we conceded the ball quite cheaply really. We did discuss that as a group but the players deserve the credit for reacting the right way at the right moment.”
