Welsh goal-scoring legend Dean Saunders, speaking exclusively to 888sport, has identified England’s glaring weakness ahead of tomorrow’s crucial Group B clash in Lens.
“England’s weak links are down the side of the centre-backs. The heart of their defence is not quite right. The two full-backs Rose and Walker are great going forward but I’m not sure that Cahill and Smalling are playing off each other. They play too high up the pitch when there is no pressure on the ball and they’re not covering each other. There is no partnership there.”
With the last sixteen up for grabs Gareth Bale and co would be wise to listen to the insights of Wales’ fourth highest ever goal-scorer who made a career from capitalising on such deficiencies to devastating effect for club and country. Yet Saunders believes it would be counter-productive for the underdogs to try and capitalise too much.
“England’s strengths are going forward so Wales will have to resists a lot of pressure at times but I think we can hurt them in individual sporadic attacks. Just sit in there and throw jabs out and hopefully the full-backs will be out of position and we can get at their centre-backs.”
Whatever the outcome from this historic encounter we can deduce one thing for sure – the BBC pundit is clearly a big fan of John Stones!
Read the full 888sport interview with Dean Saunders, including his thoughts on why Wales are now favourites in group B
