In fairness to Keane, his pre-match prediction couldn’t have been any more accurate

Niall McIntyre

Roy Keane saw this coming from a mile away.

The ITV studio prior to kickoff on Wednesday night was an extremely optimistic place. Ian Wright said England would do it. Gary Neville alongside him agreed and so did Lee Dixon.

“Roy Keane is back alongside us to restore some calm,” said host Mark Pougatch on Keane’s return to the studios.

The reality was anything but as the 46-year-old set the cat amongst the pigeons.

Roy Keane was never going to be as sure as the lads and he delivered a calm, measured response to the question.

“If they show enough courage, they’ll win the game but they’ve been in this position before and messed things up so let’s see,” said the Cork man.

In the first half, Gareth Southgate’s side displayed courage in abundance. Whether it was rustiness or a deceptive sluggishness from Croatia that made the English look good is unclear, but in fairness to the Three Lions, they were well on top in that first 45 minutes of the action.

They were confident and convincing in possession. Their passing was accurate as well as ambitious and with Dele Alli and Trippier starring, Croatia weren’t getting a sniff of leather.

And while the rest of the panel focused on the positves of this first half, Keane was again reluctant to get carried away.

“Great start for England. It’s been comfortable for them, but when it’s comfortable you can get sloppy. They’ve had a couple of other half-chances; too many passes back to the goalkeeper.

“In football you’ve got to respect the opposition but also smell when they’re there for the taking. England have got to finish this job off because in the last five or 10 minutes there were a couple of daft free-kicks given away, they’re putting themselves under pressure,” he said.

We’re all well aware that no games are won in the first half, however and as the game wore on, England reverted to type. The likes of Modric and Rakitic came into the game a little bit more and the men in all white appeared a shell of the team we’d just watched in that first half.

Sloppy is exactly what they became.

When it really came down to it, as Keane mused in his prediction, it came down to courage and England missed out simply because they hadn’t shown enough of it with the game in the melting pot.

We saw the likes of Jordan Henderson booting the ball miles over the bar late on when he had three options to his right, we saw Lingard and others give away possession cheaply.

It was this inability to keep it up in the second half that cost them, as Keane’s wariness was vindicated.