THE ANSWER IS, "NO":

Trent Alexander-Arnold clears his lines. And as Austria gingerly gather possession and work the ball backwards, you can see Harry Kane rushing up to start the press, waving the rest of the England team forward to join the charge, which they do. After a series of tentative passes in their own half, Austria's goalkeeper, Daniel Bachmann, is hastily forced to clear to touch, pursued by a swarm of white shirts. An hour has been played at the Riverside Stadium, and England have just gone 1-0 up.

In the alternative history of Wednesday night's game, this is the point at which England, energised by Bukayo Saka's fine goal and the exhortations of their captain, seize the moment and with it control of the game. With Austria forced to commit numbers forward in search of an equaliser, England feast on the open spaces, tear into the middling Austrians and run out comfortable winners in front of a rocking Teesside crowd.

In the actual history, this is the point at which Gareth Southgate decides to make a quadruple substitution that has clearly been planned in advance. Off to a warm round of applause come Declan Rice and Tyrone Mings, as well as Kane and Jesse Lingard, two of the front four who managed to press Austria so effectively in their own half.

And so for the last half-hour a disorganised new-look England get increasingly sketchy. Ben Godfrey almost passes the ball into his own net. Dominic Calvert-Lewin almost gets himself sent off. Jordan Pickford tips the ball over the bar. Ben White clears off the line. Michael Gregoritsch puts two extremely scoreable headers wide. In the end, it's hard to disagree with the Austria defender Aleksandar Dragović when he claims that they "deserved a draw".

Southgate seemed largely unconcerned afterwards, putting England's "disjointed" last half-hour down to conditioning and the volume of substitutions. But Austria also made six changes in the last half-hour and ended up looking by far the fresher and more fluent team. And perhaps you can read too much into a slightly artificial scenario in a pre-tournament friendly. Then again, this is actually part of a much longer-term trend: something strange seems to happen to England when they take the lead.

Austria weren't quite good enough to capitalise. But you don't have to search very hard to find examples of games where England have gone ahead, taken off the handbrake, and been severely punished. It's happened nine times in the Southgate era alone: twice at the hands of Spain (at Wembley in 2016 and 2018), against Scotland at Hampden Park, against France and Italy in friendlies, against Colombia and Croatia at the last World Cup, against the Netherlands at the 2019 Nations League and the Czech Republic in a qualifying game.

In fact, England have taken the lead in each of their past five tournament knockout games and won only once (against Sweden in 2018). And in case you suspected this was purely a recent phenomenon, then think back to Russia at Euro 2016, USA at the 2010 World Cup, France and Portugal at Euro 2004, Brazil in 2002. Since the start of the century, England have won only 13 out of 26 games when scoring first at a tournament. It's by far the worst record of any major nation. This isn't a statistical fluke. It's a serial pattern of behaviour.

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