Nations League: Southgate, Mancini, Mount react as England-Italy settle goalless

The 2022-23 UEFA Nations League (UNL) saw an intense clash between England and Italy in the A-category’s Group #, held at the Wembley Stadium in London on Saturday night. Both teams ended goallessly. The visitors are placed at the top of the table with a win and a couple of draws. In contrast, the hosts remain winless, along with two draws and a loss. It is placed at the bottom and is at the risk of getting eliminated early in the group stage. While Italian head coach Roberto Mancini felt lucky to escape with a draw, English manager Gareth Southgate and striker Mason Mount were frustrated by the result.

After the tie, Southgate told Channel 4, “We tried to move the ball through an excellent, well-organised team. We’ve got the ball into our forward players, and we’ve given all of them a go, tried to refresh it because we know the state of the season we’re at. So, I think at the moment that little sharpness in the final third isn’t quite there, but I was pleased with the general performance.”

ALSO READ: Nations League - Mbappe admits France did not get expected result against Austria

In contrast, Mount added, “It is frustrating. We want to win. We want to create chances and score goals. I probably should have done better with my chance. We had a few other chances, so it is something we need to look at. We have created chances, but we should have done better with them. We keep clean sheets, so it is a positive, but we need to keep working at it.”

On the other hand, Mancini assessed, “I’ll be honest, I did not expect this. I thought it would be worse. We still have a lot to work on. There’s a long road ahead full of dangers. We certainly need to score more goals, and if Davide Frattesi had scored in the opening five minutes, it would’ve been a different game. I didn’t expect us to do so well in these three weeks together. It’s important that we haven’t changed our style of football, even when the person did.”