As they prepare for this summer's European Championships, England suffered a rare defeat at the hands of Brazil. However, despite not creating many chances, and leaving themselves uncharacteristically open at the back, Gareth Southgate's system hints that a very attacking approach could be used at the Euros. Provided they can fix one glaring flaw in the middle of the park...
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00:00 (ding)
00:02 All right, so as you probably saw at the weekend,
00:04 England played Brazil, they got beat 1-0,
00:06 that made people quite sad,
00:08 but I thought, me personally, the idiot on the internet,
00:11 that it actually showed precisely how this England team
00:14 is going to set up at the Euros,
00:16 and A, why that's really, really close
00:20 to being a really good system,
00:22 but also B, why there's still one fairly major thing
00:26 they're gonna need to fix
00:28 if it's going to work against the top sides.
00:29 Now this was the England team that started that game,
00:32 and I think if the tournament was starting like today,
00:34 that's more or less what it would be,
00:36 barring the obvious injuries,
00:38 but Kyo Saka, he would definitely be in,
00:40 Harry Kane, he would definitely be in,
00:41 and Luke Shaw would definitely be in.
00:43 Now it has changed quite a bit since the last World Cup,
00:46 and that's because of the emergence of this man.
00:48 He was kind of part of a midfield three,
00:50 he was just sort of one of the team then,
00:51 but he's now so important,
00:53 the system has to work in a way
00:55 that maximizes the impact he can have
00:58 at the very top of the pitch.
00:59 But the other fairly major change
01:01 that Gareth Southgate has made to it
01:02 is now it is also a very high-pressing team.
01:05 If you think back to that sort of first 60 minutes
01:08 against Brazil, England were trying to pen them in
01:10 in their own half.
01:11 Like Brazil refused to go long from goal kicks,
01:14 they had four players pretty much camped
01:16 on the edge of their box, trying to stop them playing out.
01:19 You had Jude Bellingham pretty much just joining,
01:21 Olly Watkins straight up front,
01:22 both the midfield pivots they pushed right the way up,
01:24 and the defense pretty much sat on the halfway line.
01:28 The plan was to sit slightly off Brazil's fullbacks,
01:30 force the balls to go out there,
01:31 and then really aggressively push onto them
01:34 to try and turn the ball over.
01:35 Meanwhile, you sort of had Declan Rice in the middle,
01:38 who was blocking off the pass to Paqueta,
01:40 that was Brazil's out ball,
01:41 and when England did turn the ball over,
01:42 he would then go beyond Paqueta,
01:44 get into sort of attacking areas,
01:46 and see if he would bother to track with him.
01:48 And in some regards, it did work really well.
01:51 Like Brazil were never able to build up
01:53 through the middle of England's press,
01:54 they penned them in really well,
01:56 and they forced them to just clear the ball blindly upfield
01:59 12 times in the first half alone.
02:02 Like for context, England did that zero times.
02:05 But it also, as people have pointed out,
02:07 didn't really create any particularly good chances.
02:10 Like England had good territory,
02:11 but they couldn't really make it work
02:13 when they did turn the ball over.
02:14 And I do think a degree of that is down to the personnel.
02:17 Like you would want Mikaio Saka and Harry Kane in this,
02:20 but instead you had Foden on the right,
02:22 which is not where he's at his best.
02:23 You had Watkins, who hasn't really played
02:25 with a lot of these players very much.
02:26 You had Gordon, who was really good,
02:28 but was making his debut.
02:29 It lacked that sort of connectivity,
02:32 that synergy that would make it sing.
02:34 But in terms of stopping Brazil doing what they wanted to do,
02:37 denying them the ability to play out from the back,
02:39 showing that as a unit you can execute that high press,
02:43 it was really good.
02:45 And they're gonna go into a tournament
02:46 where the vast majority of teams,
02:48 regardless of their ability level,
02:50 will be wanting to play out from the back.
02:52 And in that regard,
02:53 you'd consider it a successful trial run.
02:56 However, and this is what we're really here to talk about,
02:59 it left England about as defensively open
03:02 as they have ever been under Gareth Southgate.
03:05 There's an absolutely sensational stat
03:08 in the Athletic this morning,
03:09 that England gave up seven big chances in this game,
03:13 which is more in this one match
03:15 than they did in the entirety of the last Euros
03:18 and the last World Cup.
03:20 And that is because playing this way
03:22 comes with an inherent risk
03:24 of all this space being left at the back.
03:27 If you want to be this high pressing,
03:29 you need to stop teams playing in here,
03:31 and England did not do that.
03:34 The problem here you see was not the press,
03:36 that was very good,
03:38 it was the counter press.
03:39 When England had possession and they gave away the ball,
03:42 Brazil were able to exploit the space in the back
03:45 and get their forwards in.
03:47 About 10 minutes into the game,
03:48 England have made a really bright start.
03:50 They've penned Brazil in, it's looking pretty good,
03:52 but then Brazil get a chance almost straight away
03:55 that they should score from.
03:56 They work the ball out to Ben Chilwell here,
03:58 you can see players are starting to get into the box.
04:00 I don't think crossing it here
04:01 is a particularly good decision,
04:03 but even if it was, it's not a particularly good cross.
04:05 Brazil deal with it relatively easily
04:08 and possession is turned over.
04:10 Now for this system to work,
04:11 this is the moment in which as a squad,
04:13 you need to be perfectly organised
04:15 and you need to aggressively win that ball back.
04:18 And you can see here,
04:19 because England are attacking,
04:20 that space has opened up between their lines.
04:23 They've gotten a little bit stretched,
04:25 but positionally, they are set perfectly.
04:28 Connor Gallagher and Declan Rice
04:30 are both here for the counter press.
04:32 Knowing that Ben Chilwell has pushed all the way up
04:34 and the space is now on the left,
04:35 Declan Rice has a quick little scan
04:37 to see whether or not somebody can break into that.
04:39 He spots, I think it's Rodrigo or Raphinha here
04:43 and he holds his position.
04:44 So Connor Gallagher has to go and close down Paqueta.
04:47 Now the best counter pressing side you've ever seen,
04:49 think like Liverpool in those first couple of years
04:52 under Klopp, would have the kind of players
04:54 who would win this ball back in this moment
04:57 and then use the fact that Brazil was starting
04:59 to come out of their defensive shape
05:01 to create an easy chance.
05:02 But failing that, the way this is supposed to work
05:05 is that Gallagher should at least
05:06 get touch tight to Paqueta here,
05:07 stop him turning, force the ball to go backwards,
05:10 possibly into a player who doesn't really want it
05:12 and then the rest of the squad then put the pressure on
05:15 and again, you try and win it back.
05:17 What happens is that Lucas Paqueta
05:19 takes an unbelievable touch,
05:22 pulls this ball out of the air and spins Gallagher.
05:25 And this is the big Achilles heel of this system
05:28 because if that ball gets past your counter press
05:30 to the feet of a player who can pick a pass
05:33 and you have forwards who are really quick,
05:36 you are (beep)
05:39 England are camped on the halfway line,
05:40 they are all facing the wrong way
05:42 and I don't know if there is a Brazilian expression
05:44 for shit off a shiny shovel,
05:46 but Vinicius Junior is that.
05:48 Now thankfully though,
05:49 England's get out of jail free card in these situations
05:52 and part of the reason they'll feel confident doing it
05:54 is Kyle Walker's recovery pace.
05:55 He gets back, he clears the ball off the line
05:58 and he bails them out of that situation.
06:00 But he then of course went off injured,
06:02 England lose that safety net
06:03 and that should bring in to astonishingly,
06:06 terrifyingly sharp focus,
06:08 how important it is to get this counter press right.
06:12 Because this exact thing kept happening
06:14 throughout the game.
06:15 Another example in the first half,
06:17 England lose the ball,
06:18 they're a little bit lax in getting the counter press right,
06:21 Brazil play through them and get in down the right.
06:23 And of course, predictably,
06:25 it is what got Brazil their goal.
06:26 England lose the ball down the left hand side
06:28 and they have several chances
06:30 to stop Brazil playing forward.
06:32 Both Rashford and Mainu failed to stop it here,
06:34 then when Dunk steps out
06:35 to put that sort of awkward clearance in,
06:38 Bill Foden should be smashing into this player,
06:40 should be getting the side of the ball,
06:42 should be stopping him making any kind of forward pass,
06:45 but he doesn't,
06:46 Brazil get in over the top
06:47 and that's where they score from.
06:49 Now, crucially, that is not me digging out
06:51 Bill Foden or Kobi Mainu.
06:54 Both of them are incredibly talented footballers,
06:56 but they're incredibly talented on the ball players.
06:59 They both have really important roles
07:01 in this England squad, in my opinion,
07:03 but neither of them are good at counter pressing.
07:06 The problem is Conor Gallagher.
07:10 Ahead of kickoff, there were quite a lot of eyebrows raised
07:12 about Conor Gallagher's inclusion in this side
07:14 because he doesn't really feel
07:15 like he's at the same sort of level
07:17 as a lot of the players around him.
07:18 There's a lot of clamor to see Mainu start.
07:21 There's certainly other options in the middle,
07:23 so why did he go with him?
07:25 Well, if you think about the midfield as a unit, right,
07:27 you've got Jude Bellingham and Declan Rice.
07:30 Now, for all Declan Rice has a sort of steely rigidity
07:34 to his reputation,
07:35 he's never been someone who flies around the pitch
07:38 from left to right winning the ball back.
07:40 He reads the game brilliantly
07:41 and he is good in a tackle when required,
07:43 but he's so much better on the ball.
07:46 You've seen from the way in really big games,
07:48 Arsenal have moved him up to the eight
07:49 instead of the sort of the sitting player
07:51 to allow him to progress the ball forward,
07:54 to carry the ball forward,
07:55 to be involved at the other end of the pitch.
07:57 And it's the same with Jude Bellingham.
07:59 He reads the game brilliantly
08:00 and he can win the ball back when required,
08:02 but it's not his game.
08:03 It's not his job in this team.
08:05 They've got him in this position
08:07 to impact things going forward,
08:09 not to be constantly running from left to right,
08:11 closing down loose balls.
08:13 And so that's why you have Conor Gallagher.
08:16 Now, if you're not a Chelsea fan,
08:18 you might just need to trust me on this,
08:19 but he is honestly this season,
08:22 probably the best off the ball,
08:24 counter pressing midfielder England have.
08:27 Like if we look at this all side by side,
08:29 you can see the thought process
08:30 of precisely what Gallagher is supposed to be bringing
08:33 to this midfield unit.
08:34 Like he is almost the Premier League's leading midfielder
08:38 for the number of tackles won in the final third.
08:40 And he scores right at the top of the numbers
08:43 for interceptions, for blocks,
08:45 for just winning the ball in the middle.
08:46 For everything else you want a counter pressing team to have.
08:50 But all of those numbers count for diddly (beep)
08:54 if you get spun in this situation
08:57 and allow Lucas Paqueta to ping a ball over the top.
09:00 And there is a reason why he is so, so good at this
09:03 for Chelsea, but look completely lost
09:05 playing for England this weekend.
09:07 And that is because at Chelsea, he isn't playing here.
09:11 He's playing here.
09:12 Gallagher leads both the press and the counter press
09:14 for Chelsea from the number 10 position.
09:17 It allows him to push up the way Bellingham did
09:20 when they're trying to pen teams in,
09:22 but also because Chelsea have a lot of width
09:24 from their fullbacks, allows them to sit off
09:27 while the inside forwards kind of tuck in
09:29 and the width is provided by the wide players.
09:32 So that's fundamentally is the problem
09:34 England have got right now.
09:35 They've got an on the ball system
09:37 where they're putting their most dangerous,
09:38 most talented, most attacking player in the number 10 role
09:42 because that's gonna get the best out of them
09:43 and it helps them pen teams in,
09:45 but they're so reliant on having a good counter press
09:48 that is being led and propped up
09:50 by someone who needs to do that from the number 10 position.
09:55 I don't think those things can live together.
09:57 Now, annoyingly, there is an incredibly simple solution
10:00 to this and that is you just play them as a three.
10:02 You ask Jude Bellingham to be a lot more conservative,
10:04 stay on this left-hand side, which he does quite like to do.
10:07 Gallagher goes that side
10:08 and then you've got Rice behind them both as a safety net.
10:11 So whenever you're getting the counter press on,
10:13 they can charge the ball.
10:14 Even if they do get done here and there
10:16 because they're slightly deeper,
10:17 it's not the end of the world.
10:18 But sadly for all involved,
10:20 in the last 12 months, Jude Bellingham has emerged
10:22 not as a very useful number eight,
10:25 but as probably the best goal scoring midfielder
10:28 in world football.
10:30 Like, do you wanna see those numbers?
10:31 'Cause they're mad.
10:32 The guys' chance creation stats,
10:34 which are like the main thing you're looking for
10:35 from a number eight,
10:36 are pretty average considering he plays for Real Madrid.
10:40 Nothing really too exceptional about that.
10:42 But his actual goal threat numbers
10:44 blow your flipping lid off.
10:47 And you simply cannot have someone
10:49 who is that good in front of goal playing here.
10:52 You have to put them in a position
10:54 that maximizes that threat.
10:56 And I will just say this, right,
10:58 'cause I know Gareth Southgate gets so much stick
11:01 on the internet for being perceived as negative
11:04 or holding this team back
11:05 or not having the balls to really go and get teams.
11:09 Given the players England have at their disposal,
11:11 this high pressing team
11:13 with Bellingham right at the front of it
11:15 is probably the most aggressive system he could be using.
11:19 It's made England as front foot
11:21 as they have ever been while he's been the manager.
11:24 But at the same time,
11:25 it's made them as open at the back
11:28 as it's ever been with him as the manager.
11:30 And how do you fix that?
11:31 Well, people aren't gonna like it,
11:33 but this is international football.
11:35 So you probably just have to pick the player
11:37 you think is gonna be best at this,
11:39 in which case, Conor Gallagher,
11:40 and then you just put your faith in them.
11:43 Use the very limited time you have on the training ground
11:46 to try and address this.
11:47 And then you get to a major tournament and you pray.
11:51 And one really quick final thing,
11:53 because there is a reason why I'm so actually upbeat
11:56 about that one nil defeat
11:57 when everyone's really down on it, right?
11:59 And it's Brazil.
12:01 They are probably the worst team
12:02 you could ever try and experiment with this system against,
12:05 and largely it worked.
12:08 Like, think about it.
12:09 All their central midfielders are great under pressure
12:11 and can do to Conor Gallagher what Paqueta did,
12:14 and all their forwards love to race in behind.
12:17 So they've got loads of options when that happens.
12:19 Other teams aren't as perfectly suited
12:22 to playing against this system as Brazil are.
12:25 And by and large, it worked pretty well.
12:29 So just to conclude here,
12:31 this is obviously a work in progress,
12:33 and I do think the Belgium game's gonna be a complete mess
12:35 given all the injuries,
12:36 but you should, I think, allow yourself the giddy thrill
12:41 of being slightly excited about what this England team
12:44 might be going to do at the Euros.
12:46 They've got the players,
12:47 they've got a system that's designed
12:48 to maximize the really good ones.
12:50 It needs work.
12:52 There's still a big issue to fix,
12:53 but it's not bad.
12:55 But yes, as I said at the start of the video,
12:57 very much in the thralls of Euros fever, am I?
13:00 So please do subscribe to us here on 442
13:03 as we ramp up all our coverage
13:04 of all the home nations leading into the tournament.
13:07 And I take a one-man stance
13:09 that it's just okay to feel joy
13:12 and enjoy your national side
13:13 instead of just constantly thinking
13:15 it's not as good as it could be.
13:16 You can tell me I'm an idiot for doing so
13:18 over on all the social medias @adamcleary, C-L-E-R-Y,
13:21 and I've just joined TikTok.
13:23 Because apparently I'm not as old as I feel
13:26 and we're doing stuff there.
13:28 So I needed to be on it,
13:29 but I've just started and I've posted one video
13:32 and I've got like 40 followers.
13:33 So if you have that app and you'd like to follow me,
13:36 that would make my heart grow two sizes.
13:38 Ba-boom.
13:39 In the meantime though, please forgive me.
13:40 I forgot to show off the,
13:41 I don't know why that's there,
13:42 magazines throughout the video.
13:43 Latest issue with Trent Alexander-Arnold on the cover.
13:45 And we are working on the first of our Euros specials now,
13:49 which will have Euros tactics in them.
13:51 So do look out for those when they are in stores.
13:53 And yeah, that's it for me until next time.
13:56 Yeah, I think that's everything.
14:00 I should have a checklist.
14:01 I'm gonna start doing a checklist for the end of videos.
14:04 And I'm also gonna stop talking.