This is my 198th report for this wonderful website of ours, and I dread having to write them when England play like they played against Malta in this latest Euro Championship match. They were devoid of attacking ideas against a spirited Maltese eleven who were determined to give a good account of themselves as one of the minnows of International football. They did do that, to be fair, but England could and should have been able to raise their game above the mediocre display we saw from them.

Maybe if the first minute of the match had seen a different outcome, it might have awoken them from their slumbers. A clever move saw the ball put through for Teddy Teuma who fired a fine effort inches wide of Jordan Pickford's right-hand post with the goalkeeper groping. If that had gone in, then England would have had to respond a great deal better. The lively start by Malta eventually petered out and we were then served up with more of the usual England fayre of back, square, back, square, keeping possession, but going nowhere.

Malta were working hard and closing down well, but then, out of the blue, one of the biggest fluke own-goals ever scored at Wembley gave England the lead. It came in the eighth minute when one of the few successes of the night, Phil Foden, burst into the Malta penalty area. He tried to pull the ball back, and it deflected off the running legs of Enrico Pepe, and the ball beat the keeper's desperate dive and ended up in the back of the net. It was a very unusual own goal to say the least, but it gave England the lead, and that was the end of the game in many ways. The look that goalkeeper Henry Bonello gave to Pepe after his blunder, said it all.

Two minutes later a careless pass by Harry Maguire was intercepted and Paul Mbong shot over from a good position, the second time that England's defence had been breached. After that England went back to their 'BSBS' mode again, boring everyone watching.

It must be said that Malta put in a great deal of effort into their play, closing down the England players at every opportunity, although that was helped by England's slow-motion passing and their feeling that after 15 minutes the game was won. Pickford spent most of the game playing as a central defender, yards out of his area. Meanwhile, Foden, who seemed to be the only one able to up his game, made another good run to get behind the Malta defence, but Bonello gathered the low cross well.

Body-checking and scrappy football was the order of the day as the game reached its halfway stage in the opening half, although Foden again opened up the defence with a pass to Kieran Trippier whose cross was blocked for a corner. In a rare Malta attack, it was Kane who was back to head one cross clear, and it says a great deal about the game when in one incident a throw-in by Oli Tomori was received by Kane a few yards in from his own goal line! What was that all about?

In the 28th minute a very poor decision by the referee denied England a stonewall penalty. Kane, at the right end this time, beat the diving keeper to the ball but had his legs taken from under him. Not only did the referee deny the penalty he booked Kane for simulation, talk about adding insult to injury! And where was VAR when it was required? I'll tell you about that in a moment.

As the half drew to a close you could feel the crowd's frustrations, especially when paper aeroplanes began to rain down from the stands. Some of the players were so lacklustre in their approach that one hopes that the manager Gareth Southgate gave them a roasting at half-time.

As it turned out, despite a couple of substitutions, Kyle Walker and Bukayo Saka coming on for Tomori and Conor Gallagher, play was almost the same for the bulk of the second-half. An embarrassing pass by Trippier, which went out for a goalkick and a collision between Trent Alexander-Arnold and Marcus Rashford were the other highlights of the first 15 minutes of this half. Southgate then brought on Declan Rice and Col Palmer for his debut with Jordan Henderson and Rashford going off. In the 64^th minute Alexander-Arnold fired in a shot straight at Bonello and there was a huge cheer for the first shot on target by either side throughout the match so far.

A-A then fired a free-kick over the bar after he, Trippier and Foden had discussed who should take the kick, and then another highlight came when the Linesman needed to have his flag taped up by the third official, who sprinted to his aid like an express train. That was exciting.

Meanwhile the game continued with Walker's cross being cleared before the first piece of quality play of the match saw England double their lead. Some neat one and two touch football saw the ball go from Walker to Foden to Saka and there was Kane to score from Saka's pass. It was an excellent goal, totally out of character with the rest of the England performance. A minute later and we all thought it was 3-0 when Rice burst forward to strike a great shot into the far corner. But there was our old friend Mr VAR who ruled that Kane was offside and interfering with the goalkeeper's vision. He was in an offside position, but it was harsh to say he was interfering. But there you go.

For the remainder, Yannick Yankum (fabulous name!) shot over from a good position, when he might have done better, Rice was unable to sort his feet out after a pass from Kane and Bonelli saved a dipping shot from Alexander-Arnold with some difficulty. All the plaudits went to Malta for their workrate and effort, although England can take heart from one thing, as they won the match, and as far as they were concerned it was Job Done.
  

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