*Former* Newcastle midfielder Elliot Anderson was a huge plus for Thomas Tuchel vs Andorra in the search for a solution to Englandâs biggest problem ahead of the World Cup.
âIt might be a bit early,â Lee Dixon said 11 minutes into Elliot Andersonâs England debut.âBut it looks like heâs played there forever.â
Might be a bit early Lee, yeah, particularly in a game thatâs the international equivalent of a clash between a Premier League side (which one clearly isnât important) and non-league opposition. But with the phones of England fans up and down the country poised to deliver social media barbs begging ITV for the 427th time to reconsider their commentary lineup, Dixon produced the sort of all-timer there would be no coming back from, assuming he doesnât actually have what weâve long assumed is an extensive collection of blackmail materials ready to use against the broadcasterâs bosses to keep him in the job this long.
âI saw him against Leeds last week and he was absolutely ran the show in midfield for Newcastle.â
The Newcastle/Nottingham Forest mix-up is excusable. He may have been watching Anderson ârun the gameâ for Forest last week â unlikely though that seems in a 3-0 defeat to West Ham â and just said the wrong club under pressure in the commentary box. We can accept a slip of the tongue.
But specifically mentioning Newcastleâs opponents in Leeds makes it a gloriously exposing porky pie. âHello,â Dixon wrote on X on August 8. âBeen offline for 2 years!!â We wouldnât stick around if we were you, pal.
The Arsenal legend was fortunate in that his predetermined display of Anderson quality vs Andorra did actually come to pass. He was arguably Englandâs player, which would be far less of a boon in a 2-0 win over Andorra if he wasnât playing in Englandâs problem position.
This was never going to be a game in which the defensive aspect of his No.6 role was going to be really tested. But he made comfortably more ball recoveries (15) than any other player, crucially, for an England team set to dominate the majority of their opponents in terms of possession, displaying the sort of awareness â often misconstrued as some sort of sixth sense or even good fortune â required of a defensive midfielder for a fully-functioning rest defence. He knows where to be when England have the ball to snuff out counter-attacks.
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Again, truer tests of his ability to control the game from that position are yet to come â he will feel the pressure far more away in Serbia on Tuesday, for example. But it was refreshing to see someone playing in that role whose first thought is to zip passes into the feet of those ahead of him or look for runners in behind, while also looking for opportunities to force mistakes in the final third, as he did when nicking the ball from one of the Andorra centre-backs before being denied a debut goal by the goalkeeper.
âThere is not one deep number six,â Tuchel said in his depressingly revealing pre-match press conference, begging questions as to why when Adam Wharton pulled out he didnât select one to replace him rather than handing Ruben Loftus-Cheek his first call-up for nearly seven years, with the former Chelsea star if anything on the attacking side of a box-to-box midfielder.
Our relief at seeing Anderson start ahead of Jordan Henderson was briefly replaced by incredulity at Mr Dixonâs brazen bullsh*t, ahead of an overriding feeling of genuine hope that Tuchel had found an option, if not an absolute solution, to his biggest England issue, with Dixon atoning slightly late in the game with a decent summary of why it was a performance to engender that hope. âYou can trust him,â he said.
