England remain winless in Nations League after failing to break down Italy

As Gareth Southgate observed on Friday, the noise around his England team does “seem extremely loud” and he did not mean it in a positive way. This is what happens when any mis-steps are taken and there was certainly one in the 1-0 defeat to Hungary in Budapest last Saturday.

There would be further moaning three days later when England drew in Germany, based on the disjointed nature of the performance rather than the encouraging late fight back. What Southgate needed here – apart from a win – was for his players to show greater cohesion for longer periods, to take better care of the ball and ask questions of an experimental Italy team; to pull them out of shape.

It did not happen, the patterns too predictable and, when opportunity did knock, the conviction lacking in front of goal. Raheem Sterling squandered the clearest chance for England, scooping over from the point-blank range early in the second half.

The positives took in a clean sheet for Aaron Ramsdale, embossed by an excellent save to deny Sandro Tonali, some nice crosses from Reece James and flickers from Mason Mount and Jack Grealish. But it felt glass half-empty and, when it was over – the 0-0 having come to feel inevitable – there were boos from the 2,000 or so school children in attendance, a moment that required a double take. Won’t somebody think of the children.

The strangeness of the occasion was impossible to ignore. It felt as though we were back to the ghost games of the pandemic, even if the two thousand or so local school children who were allowed in tried to make themselves heard, beginning with when they booed the Italy players during the warm-up. “Ooo are ya?” they enquired. There was more of the same when the visitors emerged for kick-off, when