England defender Dan Burn has put his weight behind manager Thomas Tuchel after they suffered a 2-1 loss against Argentina at Atlanta in the World Cup semifinal on Wednesday. Burn admitted that Argentina’s goals felt like a matter of time after the loss.
Anthony Gordon scored for England in the 55th minute and the Three Lions were minutes away from a spot in the final. However, Tuchel adopted defensive tactics, which many experts have questioned.
“I think when you come within sort of 10-15 minutes of a World Cup final and then don’t get it done, it hurts,” Dan Burn said.
“Obviously, I’m very gutted right now, but I’m so proud of what the team has done.
“We don’t even think anyone gave us a chance coming into this.
“The brotherhood that we spoke about just took us a long way, and if I’m being honest, I thought we’d do it.
“I just had that feeling that this was our time, but I think Argentina showed why they’re world champions and they’ve been there and they’ve done it.”
The lanky centre-back admitted they were passive after taking the lead, and it led to their downfall as Argentina made a resounding comeback. Enzo Fernandez scored a brilliant goal from range whereas Lautaro Martinez scored the match-winning goal from a header.
“I thought that we nailed the game plan up until we scored. I thought we did really well,” Burn added.
“We knew what Argentina were going to do, and I thought we dealt with it pretty well.
“And then we got a little bit passive after the goal. Defended probably a little bit too deep and the quality of chances that Argentina were creating, I thought it felt like it was a matter of time.
“I think we conceded too many crosses and too many chances, and I think it’s hard because in the previous games we’ve defended those so well.
“So, I don’t think that we can take massive criticism for going into that.”
He continued: “I think when we’re in 4-4-2 defending, we were conceding a lot of chances. So something had to change, and as I said, we’ve been pretty solid when we were a back five in the previous few games.
“I think the manager may want to have done something in hindsight, but also from the players, we’ve taken responsibility to get through.
“We’ve been 10-15 minutes away from the World Cup final, we really probably should see it out.”
England will now take on France for the third-place playoff.
