Captain Gary Cahill says England should have won in Germany

Former Arsenal captain Lukas Podolski is expected to captain the hosts on Wednesday night at Signal Iduna Park. They haven’t lost back to back worldwide friendlies since 1956. You know the drill: unpredictable line-ups yada yada yada, substitutions blah blah blah, keep stakes small. However, the focus will be on Lukas Podolski who will be playing his last match for Germany.

After an unbeaten four-game run as interim manager during the autumn, Southgate now has the challenge of building England into a genuine force again and there were some promising signs against the world champions in Dortmund.

Southgate is particularly light on forwards, missing the injured Harry Kane and Daniel Sturridge, while dropping skipper Wayne Rooney.

Handed the reins after an encouraging four-match interim stint, new coach Gareth Southgate deployed a bold, attack-minded side built upon a three-man backline and got an impressive response in Dortmund. I think we’ll look back and reflect that if we take our chances we win that game.

“Germany against England is the right atmosphere”.

Not that it really matters, since it was just a friendly. The tricky attacking midfielder nearly put England ahead in the first half but his effort rebounded off the post. For Germany, Podolski, Gomez, and Ozil will find the back of the net.

Only Lothar Matthaus (150) and Miroslav Klose (137) have made more appearances than Podolski, while only Klose (71) and Gerd Muller (68) have scored more goals.

Vardy’s goals last season helped Leicester to the Premier League title under Ranieri and catapulted the 30-year-old into the England team.

I am proud of these last 13 years. It would be foolish for England to do any different.

The Bianconeri man was named in Jogi Löw’s squad for the clash with the Three Lions, as well as the World Cup qualifier against Azerbaijan.

Podolski, looking to find global goal number 49 on a special evening for himself, had an effort blocked by Keane, whilst the closest either side went in the opening half hour was through Adam Lallana. We need to look in the mirror and change the way we do things tactically, physical preparation, our style of play and mentality. “He is unique”, said Low.