In a result that might well cost him the manager's job, Lee Carsley somehow masterminded one of England's worst-ever Wembley defeats. While Greece were highly impressive in how they both denied and got at England, a team featuring Bellingham, Palmer, Foden, Saka, Gordon, Rice, and Alexander-Arnold should have had far too much for all but the best opposition.
But Adam Clery takes a long and hard look at England's set up and asks, is this sort of wreckless abandon not what we wanted over the summer?
But Adam Clery takes a long and hard look at England's set up and asks, is this sort of wreckless abandon not what we wanted over the summer?
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00:00Yeah, that was, that was awful.
00:13Alright so yes, hello there everybody, Adam Cleary from 442 and as you may be aware, England
00:19played Greece at Wembley and got beat.
00:22And I'm just going to try and get straight into it because I've seen loads of confusion
00:26about the system and about the formation and what they were trying to do and how they were
00:29lining up and I would just like to say, I was there.
00:33This is literally my, I couldn't possibly have had a better view of the shape and what
00:37they were trying to do so I'll try and take you through it.
00:40So fundamentally, this was England and I know it looks a little bit weird and some of it
00:45might not make sense but just bear with me, right, you've got two full backs in Lewis
00:49and Trent Alexander-Arnold who are quite interior, quite advanced, they're sort of in that middle
00:53line with Declan Rice, you've got two roving eights who moved about a lot and had different
00:58jobs to do in Bellingham and Parma.
01:00Gordon and Sackett, they then provided the width to try and stretch Greece out and then
01:04Foden, England's least used toy in the box, was nominally the centre forward.
01:10Actually one thing it is very important to say as early as possible in this video is
01:14that yes, England were a disaster and we will get to exactly why but Greece deserve so much
01:21credit for that performance.
01:22They turned up hungry, they turned up determined, given what's happened to them, like they had
01:27a real fire in them that they were going to do something tonight and their game plan
01:31was absolutely perfect, their execution was excellent and I think a degree of the energy
01:35going into lashing England for that should be put aside and given to praising this Greece
01:42team.
01:43But that being said, I did check the analytics before I did this video and our audience from
01:47Greece is like less than 0.1% and our audience from England is pretty much all of it so that's
01:55what we'll be discussing.
01:56But the reason there was a lot of confusion around this system and around this formation
01:59is because we're used to thinking of players in roles.
02:03That is a right back, that is a left winger, that is a forward.
02:07That's not what England were trying to do.
02:10The way you have to look at this system is you've got five players here who were involved
02:15in the build up and ball progression and five players here who were involved in chance creation
02:20and ideally scoring goals.
02:23And the idea is for these five players in particular but then supported by these three
02:28that from this starting shape you interchange, you rotate, you move, you create space, you
02:33fill space, you have a flexibility to your system that means that this starting shape
02:39is very rarely whatever actually happens.
02:42And thus this whole controversy about not having a proper centre forward isn't really
02:47an issue because this kind of football comes very much from the school of thought of positions
02:53are for nerds.
02:55You don't need a centre forward because everyone's the centre forward.
02:58Like these are England's average positions across that 90 minutes and you can see that
03:02sort of five and five structure quite neatly sort of organised.
03:06Like here's the five with the progression, here's the five with the interchange.
03:09But even within this simple graph you can see the vision starting to form because that
03:15is Trent Alexander-Arnold getting his average contribution further forward than that of
03:21Cole Palmer because that is what the interchanges and the rotations are supposed to do.
03:25Cole Palmer is a great attacking player who drops deep to great effect and Trent Alexander-Arnold
03:31is a defender by trade who does his best work further up.
03:35And I really do feel I should plant my flag in the sand now just so you'd know what my
03:41thought process is rather than getting carried away and you're thinking I'm going mad, right?
03:46This is great.
03:47This is how modern forward thinking innovative teams should play football.
03:52But if there's no end product with it and you let Greece score five times and have one
03:58cleared off the line, it's really stupid.
04:02Anyway, yes, the vision.
04:04This is Cole Palmer's heat map.
04:06So it's where he was getting all of his touches.
04:08And that is actually a pretty typical Cole Palmer heat map.
04:10He wants to be in this half space, but he's also very capable of dropping deeper to get
04:15on the ball to find space and create chances.
04:17You may have watched him in the Chelsea-Brighton game.
04:19He was so deep in that.
04:21This is his heat map from that match.
04:23I'm getting my mileage out of that graph.
04:25He kept making chances from here as well as popping up to be on the end of them at the
04:29other end of the pitch.
04:30He loves to do that.
04:31And you will notice the Trent Alexander-Arnold heat map is remarkably similar.
04:35Obviously, he was involved in the build up and defending.
04:37That's why he's got lots of contributions here.
04:39But we know Trent Alexander-Arnold, he can get out wide and put crosses in.
04:43He can come into this area and put crosses in.
04:44He's great in this area of the pitch as well.
04:47And in the two of them, you've got players starting in different roles, but are capable
04:51of doing things in the same areas, dovetailing, rotating perfectly.
04:55That's what this system is supposed to do.
04:58And in theory, in theory, that is a perfect way for this England side to play, given the
05:05players it has at its disposal.
05:06Like, just think about it for a second, right?
05:08Palmer, as we've mentioned, loves to be in this half space, but he can also play centrally
05:12as a turn, he can play wider as a right, and he loves to drop really deep.
05:15Jude Bellingham can play absolutely anywhere across the midfield.
05:19He loves to be in this left-hand half space, but he's also played as a centre-forward,
05:23sort of false nine for Real Madrid, and he loves to drop out into that left-hand space
05:28as well.
05:28Phil Foden, admittedly much harder to see from his heat map because he's barely touched
05:32the ball, doesn't really have a position for Manchester City.
05:34He's been used wide right, wide left.
05:36He's been used number 10.
05:37There's loads of dynamism to his game.
05:40And then behind them, Trent Alexander-Arnold, as we've seen, also loves to get into this
05:44sort of area, but equally comfortable on the overlap, equally comfortable creating from
05:49deep.
05:49Rico Lewis makes these brilliant outside-to-in ball carries for Manchester City.
05:54He's great at progressing it into the final third.
05:56He doesn't even mind being the 10 or going into the box.
05:59And then Declan Rice, a genuine box threat for Arsenal.
06:03Could play six, could play eight.
06:04He's a great counter-presser as well.
06:06There's so much that these players can do.
06:09And in that first half, I'm going to sound like I'm going mad here, in that first half,
06:13this will all get forgotten because of the result, but they were doing that.
06:18Most of it.
06:19The interplay and the rotations between these players was genuinely really good.
06:24There was little flicks.
06:25There was clever tricks.
06:26There was one-twos.
06:27There was great movement.
06:28They were going around Greece when they were compact.
06:30They were playing through them when they managed to stretch them out.
06:33It was really good.
06:35I thought just no end product.
06:38And again, really do feel the need to emphasise what my actual point here is,
06:43because I'm aware I might be sounding overly positive.
06:46You can do all this.
06:47It can be really good.
06:48But Greece put the ball in the net five times and had one cleared off the line.
06:53So something is catastrophically wrong with it.
06:57In fact, I'm going to show you something that is in theory so good by England,
07:01but still somehow gave them absolutely nothing.
07:05This was their build-up shape, right?
07:07This two-three with both the full-backs moving into the middle.
07:10And the idea with doing this is that you actually make everything incredibly,
07:14incredibly narrow.
07:15And because these players are all very good on the ball,
07:17that then forces Greece to go very narrow and compact as well.
07:21It forces them to press them in that small circle.
07:24And eventually you work it around and that gives you access into either of the wide players.
07:29Perhaps they've got to drop a little bit deeper to get on it,
07:31but it allows you to bypass that entire Greek attack and midfield
07:35and get straight into one of your wide players.
07:37Now, obviously stuff like this only works for so long.
07:40Like teams will adapt as the game goes on and the better teams adapt quickly.
07:45And Greece stopped letting England have those passes all the way into Gordon Sagan.
07:49They shut that down.
07:50But almost as soon as they did,
07:52England automatically changed their build-up shape from that
07:58to this.
07:58Both Lewis and Alexander-Arnold started hugging the touchline,
08:01which created extra space in the middle.
08:03And Cole Palmer dropped all the way alongside Declan Rice to give them two in this area.
08:08Then Foden and Bellingham just basically went to a two up here.
08:11One of them could drop a little bit shorter.
08:13One of them could go in behind.
08:14And England moved to this sort of 2-4-4 shape.
08:17And all of a sudden, Greece, who had committed five players to this very narrow press,
08:21but was still trying to man-mark the two wide players,
08:24found themselves outnumbered, completely overstretched.
08:27And when they did jump to accommodate, 2v2 in the worst possible area.
08:32Like that's really good on-pitch tactical adjustment.
08:36But again, with absolutely no end product.
08:40Yas King! Give us nothing!
08:42Like even England's press in that first half, I thought was really good.
08:45They looked so much more full of energy and so much more aggression.
08:48Like they turned that ball over in the first half.
08:51A lost count of how many times,
08:53just by closing everything down and shutting off loads of different options.
08:57That's what we want to see from them.
08:59So that then begs the question,
09:00if what England were doing was incredibly clever, but just not working,
09:04what was it Greece were doing?
09:06Was it something really simple, but effective?
09:08Um, yes.
09:10Like take a look at the situation here.
09:12Like England's nominated five attackers are here,
09:14but because Greece are proving difficult to break down,
09:17here is the fullbacks and here is the sitting midfielder.
09:21It doesn't take a genius to work out that if you don't play through this
09:24and the turnover, wherever it comes, falls kindly for Greece,
09:28they are going to break up the other end of the pitch incredibly easily.
09:32Like this is three minutes into the game.
09:34England have just lost the ball.
09:35Not from a set piece, which would over commit like the defenders.
09:38This is from open play and that is Levi Colwell.
09:42And you know, since you can count, you've probably noticed
09:45that is every single England outfield player,
09:48bar one in this shot.
09:50John Stones is like five yards over here somewhere,
09:53one-on-one with one of the Greek attackers.
09:55And one pass later, they find themselves in this two-on-two breakaway.
10:00Like even the one Colwell clears off the line.
10:03Like, yes, that only comes about because Jordan Pickford
10:05has all the object permanence of a small dog.
10:08Like if he can't see any Greek players, that must mean there aren't any Greek players.
10:12They don't, they don't exist, but it only comes about,
10:15you guessed it, long ball on the counter over the top.
10:18They isolate Stones one-on-one.
10:20And it's just a really, really simple equation.
10:22Like you commit these five players to attacking,
10:24but you also have them rotate with the three behind them
10:27because Lewis wants to get in there and Rice can make runs into the box
10:30and Alexander-Arnold does this and does this and does this.
10:32And then all of a sudden, everybody's out of position
10:35when the ball gets turned over and you've only got two.
10:38And I mentioned before how good I thought England's press was,
10:41but even there, they over committed.
10:43There was once or twice when Greece could play through that press.
10:47Like that is what's going to happen.
10:49Even the best teams in the world will inevitably get played through.
10:52And because it over committed so many players to it,
10:55they just straight away found themselves in.
10:57And there's no way around this next point, right?
11:00There is something so ironic about that England result and that performance
11:04because this XI and the personnel in it,
11:08these are all the players that people were loudly saying
11:11behind you in pubs this summer that had to be in the team.
11:15The Gareth Southgate should be tried for treason for not picking.
11:20Anthony Gordon had to be in this team.
11:22Well, there he is.
11:23And Cole Palmer deserves to start.
11:25Well, there he is.
11:26And he had to find a way for Bellingham and Foden to be in the same team.
11:29Well, there they are.
11:30And Trent Alexander-Arnold should be a right back, not a central midfielder.
11:34Well, there he is.
11:36And I'm not even going to get into all the times you heard stuff like
11:39negative tactics, too defensive, afraid to have a go,
11:43because this could not be less afraid to have a go if it tried.
11:48You got five of the best, most creative attacking players
11:53this country has ever produced,
11:54backed up by two fullbacks who are not fullbacks
11:58and a six who is a box driving eight.
12:02And honestly, right, I'm going to get pelters for this,
12:04but I really admire him for playing this way.
12:09Like it was a disaster, like unreservedly.
12:12And he made it look like he hasn't got a clue what he's doing.
12:15And so many people's minds will be made up that he's too clever for this
12:19or he hasn't got the right experience or he's just an idiot.
12:22Right, that I now don't think you could probably give him the England job.
12:26Like you can't get a bit of grease at Wembley with this team
12:30and then go on and manage the national team, in my opinion.
12:33But I do.
12:35I think credit to him.
12:37He just chucked them all in there and said, well, go on then.
12:40You're all really good and really dynamic and can play different positions.
12:44Off you pop.
12:44Ultimately, what he has done is he has given this great nation
12:49exactly what it has been crying out for for months, if not years.
12:55Right. And now he will be hated and ridiculed
13:01for the rest of his career for that.
13:03And quite right to best nation, best nation on the planet.
13:08No notes.
13:09And yeah, I don't know if it's obvious in this video,
13:12but sitting watching that game last night
13:15may have sent me slightly, slightly mad.
13:19So if you have enjoyed this nonsensical rambling video,
13:23please do let us know in the comments below.
13:24Like, do you think England and Lee Carsley deserve a little bit of credit
13:28for trying something like this?
13:30Or do you think you should be dragged into every town centre across the country,
13:34pelted with rotten vegetables and all the money on earth
13:38given to Guardiola or somebody else?
13:43You can ask me if I'm absolutely sure I'm OK over on all the social medias
13:47at Adam Cleary CLEOY.
13:48The latest issue of 442.
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14:11Until next time, though, that's it.
14:13That is that is it.
14:14England's just we can't have nice things, basically,
14:18is my insightful takeaway from that game of football.
14:23Goodbye.