Trận hòa đầy khó khăn của đội tuyển Anh trước Ghana đã phơi bày những hạn chế của Madueke và Gordon | Barney Ronay

Inverted wingers were unable to adjust their game, even when they kept running down the same dead end street

After the high: the comedown. You could probably have seen this coming. If only that rush after half-time in Dallas, where England surged with such alluring creative energy, hadn’t been quite so much of a buzz.

It turns out, however, that this is still an England tournament team. Nothing comes easily. The world will not bend to you. We can’t have nice things. Or only some nice things sometimes. By the end watching England struggle in Boston against a grisly and indigestible Ghana was like having your will, hope, sense of fun slowly sucked out of your body through a surgical drainage catheter.