A hugely disappointed Tammy Abraham has shared his frustration at exiting the European Under-21 Championships and revealed what Aidy Boothroyd told his stunned England players.
The Young Lions, who lost their opening game against France, succumbed to a 4-2 defeat against Romania on Friday as all six goals were scored in a barmy final 15 minutes of the match.
Abraham came off the bench to score and looked lively in his cameo, though he – like many of his teammates – was distraught that their tournament has come to such a premature end.
Asked what Boothroyd said in the dressing room afterwards, Abraham told Sky Sports: ‘He just told the players that it’s a learning curve for us, we’ll have our proper debrief tomorrow when heads have recovered and then we’ll just move on from there.
‘It’s disappointing. You look at our squad, you see the talent, you see the quality of players, it’s disappointing obviously. We had a situation against France where we went down to 10 men, we were unlucky not to take a point out of it.
‘Today, I think Romania just took a lot of their chances. We created a few, first half and second half, that we didn’t take. In these kind of games, in tournament football, you get punished for them.
‘I think Romania were more clinical than us. We created a lot of chances that we didn’t take, and they scored their chances. They were very well structured, they had their shape, they stopped us, they frustrated us and stopped us from playing the way we wanted to play.’
Speaking about the cause of the defeat, Boothroyd himself explained: ‘I think it’s decision making, particularly in the defensive situations. You get to a point where you have to stay on your feet no matter how fatigued you are or how hot it is, that’s what you’ve got to do.
‘Unfortunately we lunged and had people looking for them as well, which happens. But overall, if we don’t take our chances, and we’re not disciplined enough to stay on our feet, then that is what is going to happen.
‘But we opened them up, we played some fantastic stuff again. I think in order to get through this we have to take the positives out of this, and the positives are the way we play the game.
‘In my opinion, and the opinions of a lot of people who know the game, we’re on the right track in terms of how we play the game and all we’ve got to do now is iron out these discipline situations and make sure we take our chances, simple as that really.’
