FIFA World Cup 2018: Each Quarter-Finalist's Major Weakness

England: Defensively Error-Prone

It’s coming home. Or not. England have had their best World Cup in a decade and are certainly favourites against Sweden. At first glance, their main weakness seems to be scoring goals from open play. They have scored a ton of goals but a majority of them have come from set-pieces and penalties. Their only two open-play goals involved a Jesse Lingard peach and an inadvertent Harry Kane deflection. However, the amount of chances created by the Three Lions suggest that this is really not an issue- as they have averaged 2.13 expected goals per game.

Instead, the main issue in the English team is the amount of silly defensive errors that they have made in the competition so far. While Kyle Walker, Harry Maguire and John Stones is a solid defensive trio all together, they have a tendency to make defensive errors. This began in the first game against Tunisia where an absurd Kyle Walker handball led to a Tunisia penalty. Even against Panama, their trio made several errors in the second half (though those came after they had a 5-0 lead). This was clear during the Round of 16 encounter where a Walker error gave Colombia a great chance and Stones’ marker Yerry Mina scored an equalizer.

This is not a new tendency for Walker and Stones- they made a combined fifteen errors leading to goals (according to Squawka) in the past three Premier League seasons (though those reduced this past season). Whether they make their first semi-finals since 1990 will depend on Walker and Stones’ ability to wipe out those mistakes.