GARY LINEKER offered comforting words to Anthony Gordon in a private chat after England fell to a 2-1 defeat to Spain in the Euro 2024 final.
Of those 21 England players who featured at the tournament, no one had less time on the pitch than Gordon – who received just FOUR minutes.
He was limited to just one substitute appearance in the dying minutes of England’s final group game against Slovenia last month.
Although Gordon impressed during that brief cameo – helping to create the Three Lions’ best chance of the night – Gareth Southgate did not call upon the 23-year-old again on the way to the final.
Gordon threw his arms around Bukayo Saka, John Stones and Luke Shaw after England’s defeat to Spain before later bumping into Lineker.
Lineker, 63, reassured Gordon that “it will happen” for him in an England shirt after the Newcastle United star’s lack of game time in Germany.
The Match of the Day presenter told the Rest is Football podcast: “I saw Gordon after the game.
“I said to him briefly, ‘I feel for you in this tournament. I think you should have got more minutes.’
“He was very kind and I went, ‘But don’t worry. You will get more chances. It will happen for you.’ He’s very young.”
Alan Shearer replied by explaining how difficult it was to drop Harry Kane, but agreed that Gordon should have been more involved.
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IT will take a while for me and every England fan to get over this, writes Jack Wilshere.
To come so close to winning that trophy, only to be beaten in a second Euros final in a row, is a huge disappointment.
Especially when it really felt like this was our time.
It seemed that everything was coming together for us to end the long wait for a major title.
But Spain deserved it. They were the better team in the final and the best team of the tournament.
We will all — supporters, players, coaches, the FA — have to move on and go again.
Because English football is still in a good position.
Gareth Southgate has taken us to two finals, a semi-final and a quarter-final in four tournaments. We have never produced a run like that before.
The challenge now is to maintain this level of competitiveness and make England even better.
Southgate and his staff have done a fantastic job in changing the whole environment and narrative around the national team.
Whether Gareth carries on or not, the wider culture he has put in place must be preserved.
This tournament was the biggest test of that culture the team had to go through.
They overcame the problems and went all the way, only to fall at the final hurdle.
But there is every reason to believe we can challenge at the World Cup in 2026 and beyond.
We’ve got a really good group of players, many of them young, who can go on playing and performing for England for years.
Jude Bellingham, Kobbie Mainoo, Bukayo Saka, Phil Foden and Cole Palmer — to name just five — have plenty more tournaments in them.
This tournament will also be an inspiration for the next generations of players. Unfortunately there isn’t the trophy lift to take that to a completely different level.
But England have delivered moments in Germany that will be replayed forever.
The Bellingham overhead kick and Ollie Watkins’ semi-final winner will be recreated in playgrounds and cages up and down the country.
What I would like to see now is England continuing to develop, to become a team that can consistently dominate opponents and can give a real identity to English football.
We now have players who are comfortable on the ball and technically very good.
The biggest disappointment of the tournament was that we didn’t see that as often as we would have liked. That leaves us with a ‘what if?’ feeling.
England must not lose that old-school mentality of finding a way to win even when you’re not playing well — that never-say-die spirit which got us through this Euros more than once.
But the next step is to allow other qualities to shine through, to give the players that our system is creating the platform to show everything they can do.
The job for me and for other coaches is to keep producing players that are comfortable on the ball and understand how to perform under pressure at a high level.
English football is in a good place but we need to keep going. Then we will finally get over the line.
Real all of SunSport columnist Jack Wilshere’s Euro 2024 columns…
Shearer added: “There’s no way you can ever drop your captain and your record goalscorer and a guy who’s on three goals without playing particularly well.
“So it’s impossible, I mean you couldn’t do it and I wouldn’t have done it. I would have kept him in the team but I would have had more legs in and around him.”
“But Kane did not look right. Whether he was carrying an injury or I don’t know.”
Meanwhile Micah Richards declared that Marc Guehi was England’s most consistent player in Germany.
Eberechi Eze made three substitute appearances in Germany and had 99 minutes on the pitch.
Meanwhile Crystal Palace’s Adam Wharton received ZERO minutes and Ivan Toney landed a mere 42 minutes across the month.
Ollie Watkins – who scored the 90th minute winner against the Netherlands in the semi-final – was awarded 38 minutes in total.
Meanwhile fans were always pleased to see Cole Palmer enter the fray as the Chelsea star got just 125 minutes from the bench.
Palmer’s second-half wonder strike had cancelled out Nico William’s 47th minute opener – but his heroics were unable to stop heartbreak against Spain.
A late Mikel Oyarzabal goal separated the two sides, with England, despite having an effort cleared off the line – unable to equalise for a second time.
IT now seems as though he really is cursed. Along with the rest of us, writes Charlie Wyett.
Tragically, unbelievably, Harry Kane’s agonising search for a trophy still continues and you know have to wonder whether he will ever actually manage it.
Certainly for England, in any case.
Kane has now suffered defeat in three major club finals and two finals of the European Championships.
Last night, the Three Lions captain was so ineffective that he was replaced by Ollie Watkins just after the hour.
Like much of this tournament, he really struggled to make the impact when England needed him, not that he had much service.
He had one shot in the first half and that was Rodri, who subsequently injured himself and went off at the break.
When Cole Palmer struck that brilliant equaliser, Kane was off on his feet from the bench, only for the national team to get another kick in the bo**ocks at the end.
Kane was substituted in both the games against Switzerland and Holland which England went on to win but on this occasion, he could only witness a gut-wrenching twist just when it looked as though Gareth Southgate’s team had dug their way out of trouble.
The Bayern Munich striker suffered the World Cup 2018 semi-final loss against Croatia, endured heartbreak against Italy in the Euro2020 final and then missed from the spot in the World Cup 2022 quarter-final against France.
He really thought that this was his time, even though England did not play well in Germany.
Kane will know that he will have more opportunities with England. But not many more.
The World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico seems a long way away and it will surely be under a new manager. Will England be better than they are now? Probably not.
And we are all left to wonder how much better England would have been with a fit and firing Kane at his very best.
Read the full verdict on the curse of Harry Kane…
Or check out all of Charlie Wyett’s Euro 2024 stories…
