Kobbie Mainoo started for England as the hosts slipped to a 1-0 defeat to Japan at Wembley on Thursday evening. Rejuvenated under Michael Carrick, Mainoo had returned to international action after coming off the bench in England\u2019s 1\u20131 draw with Uruguay and was picked in Thomas Tuchel\u2019s XI against Japan.<\/p>\n
The 20-year-old began well, seeing plenty of the ball and using his close control to spin away from markers and deliver tidy passes from around the halfway line. He recycled possession, helped defend in transition and attempted to kickstart attacks. His early highlight was an inch-perfect ball to Palmer\u2014whose heavy touch squandered the chance.<\/p>\n
Problems arrived in the 23rd minute when Palmer had his pocket picked by Kaoru Mitoma. Mainoo chased the winger and made a last-ditch tackle inside his own 18-yard box but could not prevent what was ultimately a goal for the visitors. Trailing, England pushed higher and Mainoo moved closer to the opposition box, searching for a pass to unlock the defence.<\/p>\n
The front line offered little penetration without Harry Kane, and Mainoo\u2019s accurate passes had limited effect in the final third. He only misplaced two passes in the opening 45 minutes, but one wayward attempt was intercepted by Kaish\u016b Sano, who drove forward and found Ayase Ueda. Ueda\u2019s effort struck the crossbar just before halftime.<\/p>\n
Japan dominated the restart and the hosts scrambled early in the second half. Mainoo was caught ball-watching when a through pass released Junya Ito down the right; Mainoo was late to recover but got the slightest of touches as Jordan Pickford collected the resulting cross. He avoided further errors, made several recoveries and interventions before being replaced in the 71st minute.<\/p>\n
Mainoo can take pride in an elite passing display but will want to eliminate the lapses on and off the ball that influenced the outcome.<\/p>\n
Statistics
\nGoals 0
\nAssists 0
\nAccurate Passes 83\/88 (94%)
\nTouches 97
\nSuccessful Dribbles 2\/2 (100%)
\nPasses Into Final Third 9
\nAccurate Crosses 0\/1 (0%)
\nAccurate Long Balls 1\/3 (33%)
\nDispossessed 0
\nTackles 2
\nClearances 3
\nHeaded Clearance 3
\nRecoveries 9
\nChances Created 0
\nShots on Target 0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mainoo was precise in possession but made errors as England lost 1-0 to Japan at Wembley. Subbed 71.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10353,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[961,1083],"tags":[1162,1305],"class_list":["post-10354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","category-man-utd","tag-analytics","tag-bench-selection"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}