Welcome to the summer silly season! And of course, you can’t say “summer transfer window” at Manchester United and not talk Jadon Sancho. We don’t have an update on that end, but he did see his first action of Euro 2020 today. And if you want United transfer talk today, then you can go to the post we did earlier here.
England defeated Czech Republic today 1-0 at Euro 2020 to advance through to the knockout round as Group D winners. It was a huge victory, given the advantageous standing it now provided for Three Lions in the round of 16.
They get to keep playing at Wembley, where they could face France, Germany or Portugal. And two Manchester United men were heavily involved in the victory as each of them set up a solid scoring chance. Let’s run through it.
Harry Maguire: The key here is to get him back into playing regular minutes again, having fully recovered from a long term ankle injury. Maguire was in the first team and he impressed with his long passes. Overall, he looked quite sharp, and the rust is long shaken off. Maguire set up Harry Kane for a golden opporrtunity on a through ball, but the Tottenham talisman just couldn’t convert.
Kane will still be looking for his first goal at the Euros when Three Lions kick off for the fourth time.
Luke Shaw: Placed an excellent ball over the top to set up Sterling early on, but the Manchester City star’s shot hit the post. It wasn’t long though until Sterling netted home the only goal of the game, with the winger achieving both of England’s scoring strikes at the tournament thus far.
Luke Shaw had a very solid outing, and there was a ton of praise for him on social media today. The left back spent today looking to be positive in attack, always.
Southgate obviously helping out Manchester United by not playing Sancho so his price doesn’t increase. Very good of him ?
— Danny Higginbotham (@Higginbotham05) June 22, 2021
Jadon Sancho: It’s supposed to be question of when, not if he becomes a United player, but I have to love the tweet above, as I made the same joke in my last writeup on the Borussia Dortmund winger. Sancho came on in the 84′ on for Bukayo Saka, who was one of the main heroes of the day.
Sancho didn’t have enough time to really register enough in this game to truly and fairly assess his performance.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank, partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “Transatlantic Passage: How the English Premier League Redefined Soccer in America” and “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” has regularly appeared in WGN, Sports Illustrated and the Chicago Tribune.
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