World Cup 2018: 5 factors England need to get right to have a successful

#3 Be more streetwise

England will need to be more streetwise to avoid incidents like Wayne Rooney's 2006 red card repeating themselves

One of the biggest complaints from England fans in past tournaments has been that the Three Lions simply aren’t streetwise enough to succeed against more cynical, less morally-inclined sides.

World Cup 1986, for instance, saw them infamously beaten by Diego Maradona’s ‘Hand of God’, while both David Beckham and Wayne Rooney fell afoul of some gamesmanship in 1998 and 2006 respectively and found themselves red-carded in crucial knockout games that England went on to lose.

I’m not suggesting that England should resort to cheating in order to win their games in Russia, but to see them be a little more streetwise – perhaps going down a little more easily in the penalty area, or surrounding the referee to attempt to get an opposition player dismissed – might help them to succeed.

England certainly have the personnel to do this – Dele Alli, Ashley Young and Harry Kane have all been accused of going down a little easily in the past season, while Jamie Vardy’s goal in a recent friendly against Italy – set up by Jesse Lingard’s quick thinking – suggests England are becoming a little edgier.

Hopefully, then, 2018 will be the tournament when another country goes home while complaining about England pulling somewhat of a fast one – rather than the other way around!