What's Wrong With This England Squad
A later flurry from England saw their Euros preparations start with a 3-0 victory over Bosnia. But after a first half where they offered little threat, questions are being asked about the depth of Gareth Southgate's squad, and his plans to get the best out of them. Adam Clery picks apart the system and the performance.
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00:00Hello there everybody, Adam Cleary from 442 here, and where have I been for the last week?
00:08Well obviously, I've been deathly ill.
00:10Yeah, I've been off sick ever since the FA Cup final because unfortunately the doctors
00:14told me that I've come down with a terrible case of Euros fever.
00:22Or I had, anyway, up until about like 7.30 last night when I sat down to watch England
00:26vs Bosnia, and yeah, that was really weird.
00:31Alright, so no, of course, I'm only joking, it was absolutely fine.
00:36This was the England XI that Southgate started his first and also penultimate European Championship
00:43preliminary friendly game, or whatever they were calling it with, and I would say honestly,
00:47there's about two actual starters for the Serbia game in this XI.
00:52So as a result, it was obviously going to be a little bit disjointed, and I've seen
00:56the word uninspiring used quite a lot, and I do also know four separate people who said
01:02they fell asleep in that first half.
01:04I might have been one of them.
01:06But we do these games for a reason, my friends.
01:09Gareth Southgate will have had things he wanted to learn one way or the other from this match,
01:13and I think some things have gone well and some things have not.
01:16But also, it included a few things that I think will have surprised him.
01:21So first up, right, why were England so limp and anemic and just unthreatening in that
01:28first half?
01:29Because the thing is, this 4-2-3-1 that England were using against Brazil and against Belgium
01:33is designed to actually be really open.
01:36It's supposed to be England with the hand break off, if that's one of the criticisms
01:40you have of him as a manager, this is supposed to address that.
01:43They play on the front foot, they have a really attacking number 10, you shouldn't have what
01:47happened last night, which is very little.
01:50But I just want to show you, really quickly, something we said on this very channel after
01:55that Brazil game about this system.
01:59However, and this is what we're really here to talk about, it left England about as defensively
02:05open as they have ever been under Gareth Southgate.
02:09And that is because playing this way comes with an inherent risk of all this space being
02:14left at the back.
02:16If you want to be this high-pressing, you need to stop teams playing in here and England
02:21did not do that.
02:23The f***ing god, he's dead handsome that lad, isn't he?
02:26But yeah, anyway, being too open is the problem with this system.
02:30Like Southgate's previous England sides have always been defensively solid first and then
02:35tried to do what they could at the other end of the pitch.
02:37This is that the other way around, they're throwing everything forward and they'll just
02:40make up the defending as they go along.
02:42In fact, we actually called that video back in March, the one major problem England need
02:47to solve before the Euros.
02:49And that solution seemingly was this.
02:52I'm just going to stop this right here.
02:54This is just a regular England attack against the Bosnia game.
02:57It happened time and time again in that first half.
03:00What do you notice is wrong about this freeze frame?
03:03England play against a team that shouldn't really be that much of a threat on the counter-attack,
03:08are only committing their four forward players pretty much every time they go forward.
03:13And against a team that just know you're going to dominate possession, that are happy to
03:17let you have the ball, that are going to sit back in numbers, that have three centre-backs,
03:22that just leaves them completely, completely outnumbered when they're trying to attack.
03:27Seemingly England's solution to them being really open playing the system was to make
03:30sure certain players didn't get caught the wrong side of the ball.
03:34Gallagher and Alexander-Arnold in particular, their jobs were to sort of sit outside the box.
03:39Gallagher to initiate the counter-press if it gets turned over, and Alexander-Arnold
03:43to recirculate it if it's cleared.
03:45Very smart.
03:46And that's, to be honest, a really smart way of doing that.
03:49That's a good use of both of those players.
03:50But what you really want to happen in a system especially where you're going to have Eze
03:54coming into the centre from wide left and Bowen coming across from wide left on the
04:00right, is you want both of these full-backs to get all the way up and provide that width.
04:05Then all of a sudden, instead of being outnumbered five to four, you've got six players up there.
04:09But Kieran Trippier, as attacking as he is, does not have the best engine on him for bombing
04:14up and down the pitch.
04:15And Esri Konca, while he does have a great engine for bombing up and down the pitch,
04:19isn't defensively minded in such a way that his first thought is to run the line.
04:24And so during all of these attacks, Konca and Trippier would eventually get involved.
04:29But I'll just show you their combined pass map from that first half.
04:34Again, what do you notice?
04:35It pretty much just stops dead in the final third.
04:38Trippier does get in once or twice, but by and large, they are completely unable to have
04:43any incision, to have any penetration, to be an overload, to get round the back.
04:47Bosnia, by the time they joined in, were compact.
04:50They were settled.
04:51They were all like muscular and in a ball, like corned beef.
04:55And don't get me wrong, they still had chances to go ahead in that first half.
04:59But the quality England possess in this part of the pitch might just have been enough to
05:03make something happen.
05:04But from a purely system standpoint, it just wasn't really giving them enough.
05:08In fact, actually, I'll give you a more illustrative example, right?
05:11This is Trent Alexander-Arnold's pass map in that first half.
05:15Now you can see he's obviously instructed not to get caught ahead of the ball.
05:18They don't want to leave themselves open to that counterattack.
05:21So again, his entire involvement almost stops dead at the final third.
05:26Which again, is fine, by the way, England were playing a much better side that could
05:29hurt them on the counter.
05:30This would be very well disciplined, this would be very intelligent.
05:33But I just want you to notice how few of these passes actually make it into the final third.
05:39He gets out onto the right hand side and hits an absolute raker into the box, but nothing
05:44came of that.
05:45And he also has one or two more where he just sort of gets it sort of there and out wide
05:49here as well.
05:50There's virtually no incision from his passing, again, because Bosnia was so compact.
05:55Now obviously he did then go to right back in the second half, but before that happened,
05:59let's just get rid of these first half passes.
06:01This is every pass he made in the second half before going to right back.
06:06Now it's not going to look that dramatic on the face of it, right?
06:10He still isn't physically getting into the final third, even if he is a little bit further
06:13forward.
06:14But just look at the proportion of his passes that from this area are forwards, that are
06:20getting into the box or into the channels or just into an area where they can do something.
06:26The yellow ones here represent chances he created, by the way, and I know two of them
06:29are just corners, but they still weren't even getting that in the first half.
06:33Likewise, Conor Gallagher in that first half, not a single pass forwards into the final
06:38third, just sideways and around.
06:41But again, in the second half, he's got way more freedom afforded to him to drift out
06:46into the channels a little bit, not necessarily getting stuck just in this area of the pitch,
06:51trying to lead a counter press if the ball gets turned over.
06:53They did, say it with me, take the handbrake off a little bit.
06:57I do hope you like all these Opta pass maps, by the way, because this being an international
07:03friendly, they are the only free bit of data I can get my hands on today, so there will
07:09be more.
07:10And that's kind of what this England system boils down to when you're trying to manage
07:13it in game.
07:14It is just a numbers thing, like how many will you commit forward?
07:18How many will you leave back?
07:20And you sort of look at this in the first half, nowhere near enough, you're not going
07:23to do anything.
07:24And they got this in the second half.
07:27Like that's, that's great.
07:28That's like eight players all trying to score.
07:31Now, Gareth Southgate will know that already.
07:33He'll know that this system and by extension, England's chances at the Euros live and die
07:38by the decisions you make over how many players you commit forward and how open you leave
07:43yourself at the back.
07:45So the question actually is from the Bosnia game, what did this tell him?
07:48What did this performance and the changes you have to make tell him about his players
07:52and the system?
07:53Well, for a start, I thought that Trent Alexander-Arnold had an excellent game, right?
07:58He had more touches than anyone in the England side.
08:00I think he completed more passes.
08:02He created more chances.
08:03He took his goal really, really well.
08:05But it was a performance that got increasingly better as England's approach changed.
08:10As they began to open up in that second half and give him more options, I thought his performance
08:14sort of brought everything together.
08:16And when they stuck him back at right back, I thought he was excellent getting up and
08:20down the flank, getting into the box, being an extra man.
08:23But that being said, in that first half where England were facing such a deep and organised
08:28low block, which let's face it, they probably will do in all three group games, he was largely
08:33ineffective.
08:34He was good at getting on the ball.
08:35He was giving them good possession and good territory, but he wasn't making anything happen.
08:40So as a result, he now almost certainly will not start any three of those group games.
08:45Clearly, he was at his best in a more open game, and that might not arrive until the knockouts.
08:51However, on the other side of midfield, I think we can all pretty much guarantee now
08:55that Declan Rice's starter in that first game is going to be Conor Gallagher.
09:00Like, I've been saying all season that when you watch him play for Chelsea, when you look
09:05at all the numbers, he is England's best midfield option when it comes to off the ball work.
09:10And in a team with so much talent, you do desperately need somebody to do that off the
09:15ball work.
09:16And I thought last night against Bosnia, saw it finally start to click for him in an England
09:20shirt.
09:21He won more jewels than any other player on the pitch.
09:23He won more ground jewels than any other player on the pitch.
09:26He was England's most accurate passer in the opposition half.
09:29He led the way for tackles, for interceptions.
09:32He was pretty much everywhere across that 90 minutes, and I think he allowed every other
09:37player in that team to just do what it was they wanted to do.
09:41So straight away, there are two things Gareth Southgate would have been hoping to learn
09:45from this match.
09:47Is Trent Alexander-Arnold effective against a really deep, stubborn defence?
09:51No, not really.
09:52Can Conor Gallagher be the dog in the England midfield that lets everyone else have fun?
09:56Yes, he can.
09:58And there were others across the 90 minutes as well.
10:00Can you trust Ezri Koncic to play every single position in the England backline?
10:04Yes, you absolutely can.
10:06Does Mark Gay look as dependable and as confident and as reliable in an England shirt as he
10:11does a Crystal Palace?
10:13No, he still does not.
10:15Does Cole Palmer's supreme confidence in his ability come from the fact there's not a single
10:19thought actually going on in his head that isn't about the video game Fortnite?
10:23Yes.
10:24Is Ebrichie Eze absolutely f***ing mint?
10:28Also yes.
10:29One thing I don't think Gareth Southgate will have been expecting to learn from this game,
10:33but now has, involves this.
10:37This is Adam Wharton's pass map from when he came on in like the 60-something minute,
10:43just to have a run around in midfield in that second half.
10:46And this may sound ridiculous, but I don't think I've seen a player look more instantly
10:53comfortable in an England shirt than that ever.
10:57So I have raved about Kobe Maneu on this channel this season, precisely because he's the kind
11:01of player England don't really produce.
11:04He's calm and he's composed and he's press resistant and he can sort of allow you to
11:08do things in that build-up phase that we never ever tend to have, right?
11:13Adam Wharton is the other kind of player we never ever seem to produce.
11:17His every single instinct when he gets on the ball is just, how can I move this forward?
11:23How can I advance this attack?
11:25And sometimes that means playing it instantly.
11:27Sometimes that means holding onto it.
11:29Sometimes that means giving it back to somebody else so you can move into a better position.
11:34He played for the majority of that second half and he did so alongside Madison, alongside
11:39Grealish, alongside Kane, alongside some really established players in this England side and
11:44did not misplace one single pass.
11:47He's so just beautifully two-footed.
11:50He's full of energy, gets around the pitch, he reads the game absolutely superbly.
11:53He probably would have said his name was definitely in those seven that were going
11:57to get cut from the full squad, but now, I don't know how you don't take him.
12:04But that, my friends, is a problem for Gareth Southgate and not for me yet.
12:09Anyway, we'll do like a full squad breakdown after the Friday game once they've announced
12:13who's actually going.
12:14But yes, until then, I hope you have enjoyed these learnings we have taken from England
12:183, Bosnia 0.
12:20As ever, you can grab me on all the socials, Adam Cleary, C-L-E-R-Y.
12:24The Euros issue of the mag is in stores now.
12:27Really proud of that catch.
12:28You can get it now.
12:29It's really good.
12:30It comes with a wall planner.
12:31It's delicious.
12:32If you made it this far in the video, though, could you let me know, please, you're starting
12:35England 11.
12:37Just imagine everybody's fit for the first game of the Euros in the comments.
12:41You can arrange it however you like.
12:42You can format it however you like.
12:44I'm just trying to get my hands around the balls of consensus, if you will.
12:51Yeah, that analogy is going to haunt me for a while, so I'm going to end the video there.
12:55I need to go think about what I've done.
12:58Love you.
12:59Bye.