England player ratings vs. Serbia: Chelsea & Arsenal stars get eights with a disappointing five up frontplaceholder image
England player ratings vs. Serbia: Chelsea & Arsenal stars get eights with a disappointing five up front | Getty Images
Rating all of England’s players after the 2-0 World Cup qualifying win over Serbia.
England extended their perfect World Cup qualifying record with a 2-0 win over Serbia at Wembley on Thursday evening – but what did Thomas Tuchel learn about some of the players battling for spots in his squad?
The Three Lions manager made several interesting selection decisions: Morgan Rogers was preferred to Jude Bellingham at number 10, Nico O’Reilly was handed a debut at left-back, and Phil Foden was brought on as a replacement for Harry Kane up front in the second half. So which players made their case for inclusion in next summer’s World Cup squad, and which found it tougher to prove themselves worthy? Here are our player ratings for England’s win over Serbia.
Nico O’Reilly impresses with solid England debut
Jordan Pickford – 7/10: Another cap for Pickford, and another match in which he wasn’t exactly overworked. The Everton man only had one save to make and that was a relatively comfortable low stop from his own defender in Ezri Konsa. A job done with no alarm bells rung.
Nico O’Reilly – 7: O’Reilly god the nod to start ahead of Djed Spence and played the full 90 minutes, looking comfortable on the ball and hassling the Serbian midfield effectively when stepping up from the back four. The only real weakness we’ve noticed during his club career – his one-on-one defending against quick wingers – wasn’t tested at any point, and there will be more thorough examinations of his credentials, but he certainly didn’t look out of place.
John Stones – 6: Stones, starting for the third consecutive match and looking very much like one of Tuchel’s first-choice centre-backs, was typically efficient on the ball but was guilty of a couple of minor defensive mistakes, missing at least one tackle and finding himself beaten in the air from set pieces twice.
Ezri Konsa – 7: No such quibbles for Konsa, who may have given Pickford a brief fright with a well-timed tackle that inadvertently doubled up as a shot but otherwise handled everything thrown at him – the Aston Villa man made all three of his attempted tackles and 86 of his 88 passes found a team-mate.
Reece James – 8: Excellent in defence, intelligent in possession and dangerous at times in the final third, James really made the case to be in the squad over players like Trent Alexander-Arnold, if only on the grounds that he simply doesn’t have any significant weaknesses to his game. James looks to be among the first names on the team-sheet now – so long as he can stay fit for once.
Morgan Rogers fails to make case in midfield
Declan Rice – 6: By Rice’s high standards, this was a fairly quiet night – he didn’t tend to be in the right place to make many defensive contributions and while he kept possession ticking over with a minimum of fuss, attempts to tee up chances in the final third largely fell flat. Still nailed on to start in the United States, injury notwithstanding.
Elliot Anderson – 7: The Nottingham Forest man is making the second midfield spot his own and was far busier than Rice, with more than twice as many touches. He drew four fouls when running at defenders, scarcely misplaced a pass all night and the only real strike against him was that he also committed three fouls of his own when tracking back. In terms of effort and industry he is beyond reproach, but the intelligent use of possession is noticeable too.
Marcus Rashford – 6: This was a big chance for the on-song Rashford to claim the left wing spot with Anthony Gordon out, but he was more lively than effective in the end, snatching slightly at his shots on goal and failing with all four attempted dribbles. His positional work and ability to stretch play was very visible, at least.
Morgan Rogers – 6: Rogers had a couple of lovely touches, not least a wonderful cross-field pass for Rashford in the first half after controlling an awkward ball down the right wing, but was unable to impose himself on the game. This was much like his outing against Serbia in Belgrade – he touched the ball less than any other England player in the starting line-up save for Harry Kane, and while those touches were perfectly well-judged he isn’t finding ways to involve himself as often as he should. That’s not a criticism that can be levelled at Bellingham, who replaced Rogers in the second half.
Bukayo Saka – 8: A gorgeous opening goal was the centrepiece of another buccaneering performance in which he proved too quick and too guileful for the Serbian defence on a number of occasions. Along with Pickford, Rice and Kane, one of the four players absolutely certain of their starting spot in the States.
Harry Kane – 5: For once, the England captain was kept quiet, restricted to just one meaningful chance – a header from the edge of the six-yard area with which he should have done more – and largely marked out of the game until he was replaced by Phil Foden in a second-half experiment.
Jude Bellingham and Eberechi Eze shine from the England bench
Eberechi Eze (64’ for Rashford) – 8: If Saka’s goal was impressive, Eze’s was even better, a magnificently-controlled curling volley from the instep which few forwards could have improved upon. Before the goal, he was lively if not ultimately effective, and certainly suggested that he was worth an extended look at on the left against Albania this Sunday.
Jude Bellingham (65’ for Rogers) – 8: In the space of just 25 minutes, Bellingham got himself on the ball more often than Rogers did in 65 and while he didn’t score or create a goal he made a pretty clear point: Anything Rogers can do, Bellingham can do too, and probably better. Became the focal point of England’s attack the instant he entered the field.
Jordan Henderson (65’ for Rice) – 6: Henderson did what he always seems to do for Tuchel, which is come on in the second half, and be rock solid in possession without doing anything spectacular. Perhaps that’s enough when it comes to seeing games out.
Phil Foden (65’ for Kane) – 7: Describing Foden as a “mix between a nine and a 10” before the game, Tuchel put his theory to the test by playing Foden in Kane’s place as a deep-lying striker, and it largely worked – although he was knocked off the ball by Serbia’s larger defenders once or twice he provided three shooting chances with his passes and lay-offs, one of which was Eze’s goal. Unlikely to dislodge Kane as a starter though he is, this was a short outing which suggested that he may yet have a role to play in the United States.
Adam Wharton (85’ for Anderson) – 6: Really, giving Wharton any kind of rating is a little pointless. He only touched the ball 10 times after coming on, and it’s hard to know what Tuchel might have hoped to learn with such a brief cameo.
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