Stan Collymore: England must sharpen up at the back to survive Mexican onslaught

Stan Collymore has warned England must “get their act together” defensively if they are to beat Mexico and keep their World Cup dream alive.

The Three Lions face the co-hosts in a last-16 tie at the famous Azteca Stadium during the early hours of Monday morning.

Former Villa and England striker Collymore, who has been following England in America and who will be at the match, reckons playing at altitude gives the home side an advantage and may force boss Thomas Tuchel to tweak his tactics.

But he believes it will all count for nothing if the Three Lions don’t sharpen up in defence after some shaky showings to this point.

England found themselves 1-0 down to DR Congo in Wednesday’s last-32 tie before being bailed out by Harry Kane’s second half double.

Collymore told the Express & Star: “Defensively, we have to get our act together, to be honest.

“The kind of mistakes we saw for the DR Congo goal have got to stop.

“I think Mexico are an average team but they have the massive benefit of playing in the Azteca at altitude.

“They just went for it for the first 20 minutes against Ecuador in their last match. I expect them to come out all guns blazing so defensively we have to do much, much better.”

While Collymore is keen for England to raise the tempo of their performances, he acknowledges that won’t be easy at a stadium 2,200 metres above sea level.

He continued: “It is a one-off game where players are not going to be able to physically adapt.

“I would imagine Thomas Tuchel will be telling the players they need to keep the ball much better under pressure, slow the game down.

“Because we do have three or four pacy wide players, it might be a game for soaking things up and hitting on the counter.

“We certainly have the players to do that. I think we might see a slightly modified England intent to adapt to the advantage Mexico will have.”

One thing England have to their advantage is the presence of Kane. The Bayern Munich striker has scored five of their eight goals in the World Cup so far, taking his overall tally in international football to 84 in 118 games.

Collymore believes Kane needs to remain at his best if England are to stand any chance of going deep into the tournament.

“He just knows what he is good at,” he said. “When he gets in the box he knows the ball is going to come into a certain area and he attacks those areas.

“In that regard, at a time when centre-forwards are becoming ever rarer, he arrives in the box at the right time and place.

“We are in an age when most forwards want to be wide forwards, cut in and shoot.

“They don’t want to play with the discipline of having their backs to goal and doing the most difficult thing which is getting the timing of those runs into the box right.

“He is a guy who is of the age now, who has played enough matches, who knows where to land on the pitch to do damage.”

Collymore continued: “It’s been a slow burner from England so far, a five or six out of 10.

“From eight halves of football we’ve probably had one good one, which was the second half against Croatia.

“Then there was a 20-minute spell in the last game when Harry Kane came good.

“Overall, looking at the form, France, Spain and Argentina are arguably the favourites after winning games and playing well.

“England have won games and at times looked disjointed, rattled and defensively flaky. But we have still managed to get results.

“It’s looking like if England are going to get to the latter stages of the tournament it is going to be through belief, hard-work, discipline and the two world class players we have in Kane and Jude Bellingham to carry us through.”

Stan Collymore was speaking courtesy of BetGoodwin