Why England Finally Came Good Against The Netherlands
England are into the final of Euro 2024 after a stunning 2-1 victory over The Netherlands. Ollie Watkins' late goal sent Gareth Southgate's men into the final, but after a tournament where they've endured criticism from all quarters, it was a goal the team - and two players in particular - fully deserved.
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00:00Hello there everybody, Adam Cleary from 442 here.
00:08England are in the final of Euro 2024, I'm just, oh, it's coming home, isn't it?
00:21All right, okay, so that's a ridiculous assertion to make at this point, they've still got to
00:26go play Spain, who've been the best team in the tournament, and you would make them massive
00:29underdogs going into that, but that was the best introduction I could possibly do, because
00:34if you haven't seen it already, Ross Kemp's already done the perfect introduction to any
00:39video.
00:40So, now look, right, I know a fair number of you are going to be watching this with
00:47a slightly sore head, and God knows, I'm going to have one too, and you're probably thinking,
00:52it's not really like a tactical narrative in that game, is it, there's not really some
00:56big strategic point we can make about it, but actually, there is, yes, and not just
01:02there is, yes, but within there is, yes, one of the most interesting sort of tactical developments
01:07I think that's ever happened under Gareth Southgate's reign as England manager.
01:11So once again, theoretically, England went with this back three, two wing backs, double
01:15ten system that they used against Switzerland, but just in the same way a lot of people watched
01:20that game and didn't really see that happening, it was, ugh, on and off, but it definitely
01:26was certainly off the ball anyway, what they were trying to do, like if you look at the
01:30moment right before Xavi Simmonds scores that opening goal, you can see Pikaio Saka is all
01:35the way back here, this is a back five.
01:38But because of the way the Netherlands set up in this game, England weren't really able
01:42to implement it the same way they had against Switzerland, so when they had the ball, it
01:47more or less went back to the four, two, three, one.
01:50Now if you have the particular misfortune of being in any football adjacent WhatsApp
01:54groups with me, you will no doubt know over the past two days I've been banging on about
01:59how the Dutch system leaves this huge opportunity for England's midfield.
02:03You saw it quite a lot in the Turkey game, because they do like to press with this front
02:07three here, but because of the ageing legs in their two centre backs, Van Dijk and De
02:11Vries, they don't push up as a unit, the defence sits really far off them.
02:16Now when you have this sort of like pressing disconnect between your forwards and your
02:20defenders, the midfield basically has a choice of whether it jumps up to support the press
02:25and leaves the defenders really exposed, or it sits back and kind of lets them get on
02:29with it.
02:30And in the case of the Dutch, they largely sit back and allow them to get on with it,
02:35leaving this huge corridor behind the press, where if you can get the ball into your midfielders,
02:40you can get turned and start making things happen.
02:43And so pretty simply, to stop this problem, what the Dutch did was they just didn't press,
02:49they didn't allow England to have that space in this part of the pitch, they sat off the
02:52back four, they allowed them to have possession.
02:54And that might not sound like that big of a deal, but in all the sort of like latter
02:59stage of a tournament, big games that this Gareth Southgate side has played in, they've
03:03always had less possession than the opposition, full stop, never mind loads more.
03:08But if you're wondering why in that first half especially, they looked so much better
03:13than they've looked throughout the entire tournament, that is because they took this
03:17possession for the first time, and really used it well.
03:21And the two major reasons for that, they cannot go unpraised in this video, are Phil Foden
03:28and Kobi Meinu.
03:29Now Meinu especially, I really want to focus on here, because what he was doing was harder
03:32to notice than what Foden was doing.
03:35Theoretically, this is not the game for him.
03:37You want him in a match where the pressure is going to be put in this part of the pitch,
03:41so he can receive it, he can break that line, he can dribble, he can pass, he can get you
03:45up the field, but given that the territory had already been surrendered, maybe not what
03:50you want him for.
03:51But instead, this was his heat map, and you'll see he's doing virtually nothing, nothing
03:56in England's own half, a little bit here and there, but he's not getting on the ball in
04:00the build-up, he's not taking it off the back four, what he's doing instead, is he's getting
04:04into this really deep Dutch defensive shape, finding the space and panicking them.
04:10Now granted still, you've got Pakaio Saka, you've got Phil Foden, you've got Jude Bellingham,
04:14he's probably not the player you most want on the ball in these situations, but that's
04:18not what he was doing.
04:19It was this brilliant moment in the first half, where the ball gets turned over by the
04:24Dutch, the chance is broken down, and Mane, who comes out of nowhere, and puts in this
04:29challenge.
04:30It's not a great bit of skill, it's not a great pass, it's not anything like that, it's
04:34just brilliant reading of the game, and he turns what could be a counter-attack for the
04:38Dutch into another attack for England.
04:41And that pretty much became the story of his entire match, he was a one-man, high-pressing,
04:46dual-winning machine, which is an individual performance, by a six-year-old, remember,
04:51goes, I honestly think that is as impressive tonight as Yamal was last night.
04:57But as well as him, we have to talk about Phil Foden tonight, because there's been so
05:00much said about him over the tournament, why does England persist with him, why does Southgate
05:06keep trying to get him in this side?
05:07You saw tonight, when it works, what he's capable of doing against a really, really
05:13good team.
05:14And I'm not going to get into it, because we've talked about it in every single other
05:17England video, this problem with him and Bellingham occupying the same zone.
05:20This sort of half a back five, half a back four system that England had, really made
05:26Foden sing.
05:27Because on the one hand, because the back five is so lopsided, you're still getting
05:31width from Saka, but Bellingham also loves to float out into these positions, so all
05:35of a sudden he kind of became more of like a second striker behind Harry Kane.
05:40And what I think genuinely might have been a moment of awakening for him in this game
05:44was because the Dutch were sitting so deep, and they were defending man for man, and they
05:48have this sort of four-three shape in their own half, Foden must have looked at that and
05:53thought, hang on, I play for Man City.
05:56Almost every single Premier League game Phil Foden is in, he comes up against that exact
06:00kind of defensive block, like the team desperately wanting to counterattack against them, so
06:05the attackers aren't really helping much, they're kind of up the other end of the pitch,
06:08but also where the quality of defenders is very good man to man.
06:12With that lightbulb going off over his head, all of a sudden you saw Phil Foden at Man
06:17City tonight.
06:18His ability to float off the defence, in front of the midfield, find the ball, go left to
06:23right, receive it, drive, shoot, everything.
06:26It was all there.
06:27And that goal he should have scored, that's nowhere near where you'd want Phil Foden to
06:30be to impact the game, but that's where he's read the situation, decided to get involved.
06:35So he gets on the ball, he gives it to a teammate, he knows now he's been marked by this midfielder
06:40and not the defenders, so he burns past him, he leaves him for dead, and all of a sudden
06:44he's an option to receive it, moving into the box.
06:47Then it's a case of just individual technical skill, were it not for that brilliant block
06:50on the line, he'd probably have scored one of England's best goals in this tournament.
06:55But it wasn't just that dropping deep to evade everyone, then go on a run, he also kept finding
07:00space in this sort of favoured right-hand channel on the outside of the box.
07:05The defence are slightly too deep, he finds a gap in between the midfield, and instead
07:09of getting on the ball and doing what he's been doing in this tournament, which is dallying
07:13around and trying to play a short pass, he goes, no, je suis Phil Foden, and he has a crack.
07:18And because of how negative the Dutch were, and how good Mane was, and how alive and electric
07:23Phil Foden finally felt, England dominated that half.
07:27This is their entire pass map from the first 45 minutes.
07:30And I know, I know, you're looking at that thinking, this is a complete mess, Adam, I
07:33can't learn anything from looking at that, but just take a second, you will notice that
07:38the majority of England's passes are in this part of the field and slightly higher up.
07:43They're not having to have the ball a lot in their own third because of how much territory
07:48the Dutch had let them have.
07:49But it also will not have escaped your attention that in the second half, they struggled a
07:53lot more.
07:54And this is how the pass map changed across those 45 minutes.
07:59It's not staggering, it's not dramatic, but you'll notice that where the weight of them
08:04was here, the weight of them is now there, they got forced back.
08:08And that is fundamentally because the Dutch realised that this was not working.
08:13Their desire to keep the lines nice and compact to restrict England had seen them concede
08:18too much territory.
08:19So instead of having the forwards drop back to be near to everybody else, they had everybody
08:24else be near the forwards.
08:26They pushed right the way up.
08:28Now this is brave and it was aggressive and it could have spectacularly backfired for
08:32them.
08:33But the one thing going for this idea, which England really hate, is that in Harry Kane,
08:39they have one of the greatest goal scorers of his generation still, there is no question
08:43about that.
08:44When it comes to running in behind a defence, he has about as much use there as I would
08:50be.
08:51And there was this little moment in the first half that I think would have encouraged Koeman
08:54to make that change, right?
08:56Kobe Meinu, that man again, the one man ball winning machine, he forces this turnover and
09:01England have a brilliant counterattacking situation into this exact space behind the
09:07Dutch defence.
09:08And I don't even need to play you this full clip, right?
09:11Look at Harry Kane's body language.
09:13Instead of facing towards goal, running in behind, pulling a defender away, creating
09:18space for his teammates or possibly even getting into a through ball, he still just wants it
09:24to feed.
09:25He's got the exact same body language and positioning as the defenders.
09:29That's not me digging him out.
09:30That's not me saying he's the source of all of England's problems.
09:32That's just how he plays.
09:34He's never had the pace.
09:35He's never had that particular desire.
09:37That ball is never going to be on for him.
09:39So you may as well push really high up to try and wrestle back control of the game.
09:44And this change really did work.
09:47Like if you were watching that, it probably felt exactly like the Switzerland game for
09:51you.
09:52Really good start.
09:53Good control of the ball.
09:54Momentum changes.
09:55A goal nearly comes and it feels like England are losing their grip on this match.
10:00But that's not what happened, is it?
10:03England actually went and won the game from that situation.
10:08And for all Gareth Southgate has rightly and wrongly been criticised through this tournament
10:13for a perceived bias towards certain players, never taking them off and sticking with them
10:18and not making substitutions that respond to the changes in the game, that's exactly
10:25what he did.
10:26And I've heard it all through this tournament, like people in real life, my friends, the
10:30comment section in these very videos, all over social media, whatever opinion you have
10:35about Gareth Southgate, this change that he made here was exactly the kind of change
10:41he gets accused of never making and it won the game.
10:45And why do you bring on Olly Watkins instead of Ivan Toney?
10:49Because Olly Watkins makes runs in behind.
10:53And when Cole Palmer receives this ball in the last minute of the game, you know for
10:58a fact Harry Kane would want this defeat and be about here.
11:02He'd get it under control, he'd get turned back in this direction, we'd all be screaming
11:07for Jude Bellingham to get into this gap here so he can take the pass on and he can get
11:11a chance away.
11:12And I've got no doubt in my mind whatsoever, by the way, that that is in that defender's
11:16mind.
11:17Because he's not really bothered about the option of Watkins turning him, is he?
11:21But the touch from Watkins is not one of control, it is one of opportunity.
11:26He gives himself just a little yard off to his left-hand side, the defender sees it,
11:31he sort of motions across to try and make sure he can't run past him, but that's not
11:36what happens.
11:37He just takes the shot first time.
11:39And for all we talk about tactics and systems and percentages and giving yourself this and
11:43giving yourself that, at the end of the day, that ball goes in the back of the net because
11:49it's a f***ing brilliant strike.
11:52But it is also one that's almost a trademark of Olly Watkins.
11:55He has scored almost that exact same goal, certainly goals from that exact same position
12:01on the same foot, in the same sort of circumstance, time and time again for Aston Villa.
12:06And that change was ultimately made because with the game being like this and there being
12:10all that space in behind and potentially being able to stretch that defence out, there was
12:15a chance a player like Watkins could score a goal like that.
12:21And I am not here to try and change anyone's opinion on Gareth Southgate, either as a manager
12:27or on his time as the England boss.
12:29People already have their minds made up and it's not going to change by watching this
12:34one YouTube video.
12:35But just in the here and now, in the warm afterglow of that semi-final victory and that
12:40Olly Watkins goal, you simply have to hand it to him.
12:45And like it or not, as a result of that one singular substitution, England are somehow
12:53in the final of Euro 2024.
12:57What a time to be alive.
12:58Now it is 1.30 in the morning for me here, so I am going to leave it there.
13:03But while you're watching this, presumably on Thursday, Friday or whenever, please do
13:07let me know what you made of that game in the comments below.
13:12Did England have more control?
13:13Did they finally look like the team we've wanted them to be this tournament?
13:16Or was there more than a huge slice of fortune in this match?
13:19I didn't even talk about the penalty, which by the way might be the single most fortuitous
13:24penalty I've ever seen given.
13:26But oh well.
13:27Yeah, actually, now that I mention it, that was a really, really awful call, wasn't it?
13:33But crucially also, not my problem.
13:35You can get me on any single social media you wish.
13:38Go on, I dare you, at Adam Cleary, C-L-E-R-Y, the 442 socials in the corner of the video.
13:43I'm still laughing because I'm still absolutely cock-a-hoop over that match.
13:48The magazine, I haven't got it here.
13:50It's in stores now.
13:51It's always in stores.
13:52You should always be buying it all the time.
13:54That's my opinion.
13:55Please, God, subscribe to us here on 442.
13:57We're having so much fun with the Euros continent and we're only going to keep doing all this
14:01fun stuff with the transfer window and the new Premier League season and everything like
14:06that.
14:07So that little button is your friend, but so am I.
14:10And I am now going to go to bed.
14:13And I'll wake up in the morning and think I've dreamt all of that.
14:17Bye!