England, Germany and a low-energy state of Nations League affairs

Gareth Southgate and the lads went for a nice walk in Budapest last weekend. They took in Heroes Square, St Stephen’s Basilica, the magnificent parliament buildings, Buda Castle and the rolling blue Danube, and at some point during their relaxed stroll around the vibrant Mitteleuropean wonder, they absent-mindedly lost their opening Nations League fixture. Ah well, never mind, who cares. Not The Fiver, that’s for certain. Nor, we strongly suspect, do you. The players surely can’t be bothered, if their signal disregard on Saturday for giving new England broadcaster Channel 4 bang for their buck is anything to go by. This much we know.

But who can blame them? They’re strolling on fumes after the end of a long, hard, dramatic, emotionally draining season. They deserve to be on the beach somewhere, soaking up the sun, drinking cold beverages and getting into unnecessary fistfights with the locals. Sadly, instead of lying beside the pool, imbibing hop-based refreshments and throwing hands at native law-enforcement officers, they’ve got more goddamned Nations League effing football to play. A relaxing summer of fun, frolics and long-running legal sagas requiring assistance from the British embassy will have to wait, and yes we are vamping shamelessly, with nothing left to say, but this has been the case since about 2003, none of this can come as a surprise to you.

This low-energy state of affairs isn’t stopping Gareth Southgate from cracking the whip before Tuesday’s supposed big clash with presumably equally uninterested rivals Germany. With only three players in the squad having scored five goals or more in their entire England careers – Harry Kane (49), Raheem Sterling (19) and Harry Maguire (seven) – he’s demanding others