Squad Numbers

Four points from the opening two games, and almost guaranteed qualification to the round of sixteen, on the outside, things are going pretty well for England at Euro 2024. That is true to an extent, as qualification is not to be scoffed at, and Serbia and especially Denmark are very capable of hurting any team. However, England’s performances have been nowhere near the level required to take them further than they have in previous years.

England are trying to play more expansive football, with a plethora of talented, attack minded players in the team, but they are nowhere near that utopia, instead they are a confused, muddled mess. Across two games, they have managed maybe one half of good football, and that’s combing periods from the two games. The first thirty minutes against Serbia were a joy to watch, England dominated the ball, creating multiple chances, with players such as Bellingham, Foden and Trent given license to roam and use their incredible talent to torment the opposition defence. However, after they scored, England slowed the tempo down, eventually to such a stage in which they were camped on the edge of their own box for the entirety of the second half. If I was to summarise the Denmark game I would highlight the last sentence, press CTRL C and then CTRL V. Exactly the same. The only difference between the two matches was that Denmark found a way to score, through a screamer from Morten Hjulmand. That is the risk that comes with defending deep, quality players can do that to you if they are allowed to receive the ball in space outside the opposition area. This will become more of a problem later on in the tournament, when England face teams such as France, Germany and Portugal, who all have players with the ability to repeat the strike of Hjulmand.

The answer to this surely is to press higher up the pitch. It felt as if England had no desire to do this throughout the game, and the individuals couldn’t be bothered to run that little bit more. Of course, this is not the case, all of these players are determined and highly motivated to perform at this level, just look at how some of them, such as Kieran Trippier, dropped to the floor as the full time whistle went. The players are trying, they just don’t know what they are meant to be trying. Southgate said this after the game, confirming that England are trying to press high up the pitch: “We’ve played teams that are quite fluid in a back three and it’s not easy to get pressure on them but we definitely have to do better than we have done in these two matches, that has been part of the problem.” This shows that they are attempting to press high, but it is not working, the plan is not there. Whenever England did try to press higher up the pitch against Denmark, it felt as if it was individualised, and Harry Kane had little to no involvement in the press. That is a huge problem, as the central striker needs to be the one leading the line, instigating the press for those behind him to follow. There was even a moment in the game where England were trying to press, and Declan Rice was higher up the pitch than Harry Kane was. It all speaks to an incoherent plan and disjointed ideas.

Speaking of disjointed ideas, let’s speak about the in possession side of the game. England were awful, and I must stress this, they were awful with the ball in the game against Serbia, and it comes down to team selection and there being very little to no obvious collective plan. Both Declan Rice and Trent Alexander-Arnold were in roles in which they had to come deep, receive the ball with their back to goal, and play it off to someone else, neither of them are strong in this area and England were lucky that they weren’t punished when the two of them did give it away, which happened on numerous occasions.

Often, England would find themselves in this shape:

This shape isn’t a bad thing, infact it’s a good position to be in if you want to play out from the back. The centre back’s splitting makes it hard for the opposition to press centrally, and the two midfielders offering themselves up can help the goalkeeper have easier options. However, what England did from this position in the game was this: Pickford would have the ball, and he would lump it long towards Harry Kane. He did this continously and it was embarrassing to watch. In total, England played sixty six long balls in the game, a number which makes no sense with the players that they had on the pitch. There was no coherent plan and the players didn’t know what their teammates were going to do next. What would then happen was Kane would struggle to bring it down, and even if he did he wouldn’t be able to retain it as he was swarmed by Danish players, and he had no runners to play it to, as Saka, Bellingham and Foden all want the ball to feet, and don’t want to run in behind. This then led to England having to sit back, as you can see in the image above, so many of their players were far down the pitch, and Denmark could pin them in.

When they did successfully play the ball along the ground (rare) they were wasteful with it, they were slow and lethargic. That transfers to all aspects of the game to be fair.

Looking at it from a positive perspective, I think Marc Guehi was the only good performer in that team in that Denmark game, and all of those players can be so much better individually, and if they are, then England will benefit massively from it. As well as this, if Foden’s shot which hit the post in the first half was a few centimetres the other way, then we could be looking at maximum points from the first two games.

The individuals are not the problem, it is the system. It is a muddled system. Trent Alexander-Arnold isn’t bad in midfield, but with the team selection as it is with Foden inside and Saka on the right and Kane through the middle, he has no-one to play his raking long balls to. If you picked Anthony Gordon off the left, he could run in behind and Trent could play the pass through to him, that is a balanced system. But if you are hell-bent on Foden playing in that inside left position, then pick Adam Wharton or Kobbie Mainoo alongside Rice, as they are more capable of threading little through balls through to Foden in that position.

Fundamentally, England need to be more positive with the ball, and more aggressive without it, no matter the individuals on the pitch, that would make a big difference. Southgate does however, have some big calls to be made on who plays the next game, and the knockout match(es) that follow. There may be some unhappy ego’s as a result, but that is the way it must be. Whatever Southgate does next needs to be bold, and clear. What England are at the moment, is bold and as murky as the River Thames.