Gareth Southgate’s England do battle with the Netherlands for a place in the Euro 2024 final (Picture: Getty)
Jamie Carragher predicts England will raise their game against ‘better opposition’ to beat the Netherlands and book their place in a second successive European Championship final.
England recovered from going a goal down to get the better of Switzerland on penalties last time out, with Cole Palmer, Jude Bellingham, Bukayo Saka, Ivan Toney and Trent Alexander-Arnold all converting from 12 yards in confident fashion.
Saka had earlier beat Yann Sommer with a curling effort from range to cancel out Breel Embolo’s 75th-minute opener, forcing extra time in Dusseldorf.
The Three Lions have won just one of their five contests in normal time heading into tonight’s eagerly anticipated semi-final and Southgate has faced heavy criticism for the team’s largely underwhelming displays in Germany.
However, there is a growing sense of optimism among fans that England can go all the way and win a first major trophy in 58 years, with just two wins separating Harry Kane and Co from glory.
Victory over the Netherlands would see England book a spot in Sunday’s showpiece to face Spain, who came from behind to get the better of France in Tuesday’s thrilling semi-final.
‘I’m excited. It’s a huge game. I think we felt at the start of the tournament that England had a decent chance of going far in the Euros,’ ex-England and Liverpool defender said on Sky Sports.
Carragher hopes to see England raise their game against ‘better opposition’ (Picture: Getty)
‘You need a little bit of luck, anyone does in a knockout competition, and we had that in the last couple of rounds.
‘But I think with the players we’ve got, the squad we’ve got and our recent success in terms of getting to the latter stages of tournaments, we always felt we would get to this stage.
‘We’re here now so this almost where it all begins for us.’
England captain Kane has scored twice despite being anonymous for the most part (Picture: Getty)
While Kane has performed well below par this summer, Carragher believes the Dutch defence will give England’s out-of-sorts attack opportunities to score in Dortmund.
Asked if the match can be boiled down to a clash of the two captain, Kane and Virgil van Dijk, Carragher replied: ‘I think there will be a lot more to it than that. I think it’s fair to say that Harry hasn’t been at his sharpest in this tournament.
‘He’s got a couple of goals but he’s coming up against one of the best and, for me, Virgil van Dijk over the last few years has been one of the best centre-backs in not just European football but world football.
Van Dijk will lock horns with Kane at Dortmund’s Westfalenstadion (Picture: Getty)
‘But he [Van Dijk] has had a couple of moments in this tournament as well where he probably hasn’t done as well as they would have liked. The Austria game in the group stage comes to mind.
‘And the last game that Holland played, they did well to come back against Turkey, but there was a lot of hairy moments towards the end of the game as well.
‘So there is certainly things to look at there and not just Harry Kane, all of England attacking players, that they can capitalise if those chances arise.’
The Netherlands beat Turkey to book their place in the semi-finals (Picture: Getty)
On the back of a string of uninspiring performances, Carragher is hopeful that it will finally click for the Three Lions against the Netherlands.
He added: ‘We need to see the real England and that may come through playing better opposition because up until now, with some of the players we’ve got, we just haven’t seen enough of what we’d expect, nowhere near.
‘When you consider what we’ve seen from certainly Spain, who await in the final. Even Holland have had a couple of bumpy moments but in the main they’ve done quite well.
‘They have scored goals, looked quite dangerous, and we haven’t quite done that yet so hopefully that changes tonight.’
Asked for his prediction, Carragher replied: ‘I think England just do it, yeah. I think it will be really tight and I wouldn’t be surprised if it goes to penalties.
‘Yeah, I think England will go through on penalties.’
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