This is a difficult report to write as this warm-up match for the forthcoming World Cup tournament turned out to be little more that a training session. In fact there is an argument that maybe it should have been played behind closed doors and not given the status it had as an International match. The only real beneficiary from an England point of view was the people that make the caps awarded for these games, such were the number of subs used.

As for the match itself, England were soon forcing the pace and it was good to see many Union Jacks and St George flags on display. On eight minutes an England corner pinged around the penalty area without anyone able to make a telling touch. England were always pushing New Zealand back but occasionally the Kiwis would break quickly and they did so a minute later when Nottingham Forest's Chris Wood so nearly got through the defence, but was thwarted by some desperate defending. On 11 minutes Sarpreet Singh shot wide from a good position and that was a warning to Thomas Tuchel's team not to be complacent. England seemed to be playing a strange 2-5-3 formation as there appeared to be no full-backs in the first-half. Only John Stones and Marc Guehi were playing as out and out defenders.

On 14 minutes England's best chance so far fell to Ollie Watkins who ran on to a long free-kick, outpaced the defence, but then shot hopelessly wide. He should have done better as that was a great chance to open the scoring. Two minutes later Villa clubmate Morgan Rogers shot high over the bar from another good position, and it was left to Harry Kane to show them where the target was. He hit a fierce shot from 25 yards forcing the keeper, Maxime Crocombe, into a fine diving save.

Regular readers of my reports, both of you, will know of my dislike of the dangerous ploy of making the goalkeeper an extra centre-half, continually passing back to them and then seeing the keepers rushing their passes out and making mistakes. I predict that, as all teams now seem to play that way, there will be several goals scored in the forthcoming tournament after poor passes or miscues from the said keepers.

The game continued with England on top with the New Zealand defenders blocking all that was thrown at them. Another 'conversion' shot from Jed Spence flew high over and that led to the first drinks break that we will see over the next few weeks. Straight after the break Jordan Pickford almost highlighted my previous paragraph by hurriedly passing to a white (NZ) shirt.

Pickford was then forced into a diving save from a good shot by Matthew Garbett before Kane's pass sent Spence away down the left before Kobi Mainoo shot over to end the attack. Marcus Rashford was turning up on both wings at times but he looked lively, it must have been his new haircut. One fine cross almost set up Watkins for a tap-in only for Crocombe to intercept at the last second. On 34 minutes another cross from Rashford found Kane at the far post and his header on target was tipped over by the keeper. Rashford's crosses continued to cause problems for the Kiwis, although an attempt at goal by him, like so many before, flew well over the bar. Then just as the board went up denoting three extra minutes England made the breakthrough. Spence centred from the left and there was Kane to glance a header at goal, which dropped in at the far post. That was almost the last bit of action of the half before a tired looking bunch of players trooped off for half-time.

At the break Tuchel decided to replace the whole team with 11 others and off we went again. Anthony Gordon soon looked lively, and it was good to see two full-backs in place for this half. Apart from that though there was very little to report or enthuse over. Three minutes into the half Gordon won a corner which wasn't cleared properly and as the ball hung in the air Dan Burn saw his header scrape the post before going out for a goalkick. There was a penalty shout as Ivan Toney went down but an offside flag ruled that out. Then, New Zealand made the substitution that cost them the game, they took Payne off! Sorry, Tim is no relation, but I couldn't resist the joke.

The game was scrappy for long periods in this half and there was many lulls in the proceedings, not made any better by the raft of subs used and not least by a second break for drinks. Two chances fell to Jude Bellingham with 16 minutes to go, the first effort was blocked by the resolute defenders and the second followed others by flying high over the bar. Three minutes from the end Gordon actually hit the target but it was an easy save for the keeper. I couldn't believe it when the referee added just four minutes on at the end, as at least 10 minutes had been wasted by substitutions, drinks breaks and the 20 minutes it took for coaching staff to nip down to the local shop to get some more water bottles!

The final action saw Toney miss a sitter but no matter he was offside anyway. And that was it, not a lot for anyone to take from this match except perhaps acclimatising to the conditions. We now move on to a game against Costa Rica next week before the real stuff begins, and at least we also beat NZ in the cricket!
  

Source Notes