The Wembley final v Italy was a classic case in point, one nil up at Wembley we should have cruised past Italy who were in shock but once again we failed to roll the dice and take the game to Italy we sat back and Italy capitalised on it snd grrw in confidence as a result.
My problem with that view is that assumes that making a sub will always create a positive impact when often it can make a negative one.
There's a lot to be said for trusting your players on the pitch, it's a philosophy Carrick shares.
Nobody was going to breaze past that Italy team, they'd gone 3 years unbeaten, They had romped their way to the semis, in style, shown resiliance against Spain when needed to get through to the final and were stacked with experienced players.
We have to look at all the facts, not just some to get a proper rounded view of that time. Yes we had good players, but most of our top attacking talents were very inexperienced, Saka, Foden, Grealish etc, how many finals had they played between them? Add in Philips and Declan Rice with just 12 england caps and 120 premier league appearances between them. It was an evolving team.
I think if Spain had got through, another evolving team, we would have beaten them, due to better quality players. In the end the experience of the Italian team in key positions proved enough to solve the problems and nullify the game.
This squad has been evolving year on year, and improving. If you look at that World cup in 2018 had Lingard Ali and Young starting and Danny Rose, Dier and Vardy coming off the bench. It also was pretty inexperienced in Maguire, Stones, Trippier.
V2.0 was the one that drew with Italy, but as discussed had a moderately experienced defence but lacked it everywhere else.
V3.0 in the world cup has introduced players like Foden, Grealish, Saka and Rice as moderately experienced starters. We didn't convert our good play into the win, for various reasons, but none of them in the control of the manager. He put a formation and tactics on the field that could maybe should have won.
The progression is there, V4.0 could be the one to lift a trophy.