Why Gareth Southgate's England Don't Look Very Good
Increased criticism of Gareth Southgate's tactics and selection after England's draw in the European Championship against Ukraine.
But what's the actual cause of his side's underwhelming performances, and are they even underwhelming at all.
But what's the actual cause of his side's underwhelming performances, and are they even underwhelming at all.
Transcript
00:00 Hello there everybody, Adam Cleary from 442 here and England rubbish I definitely read
00:10 on the internet this weekend.
00:12 After going behind to a Zinchenko goal they laboured to a measly 1-1 draw against Ukraine
00:17 in their European Championship qualifiers and had a second half where they barely threatened,
00:22 created no real chances and just looked pretty just crap.
00:26 And as we seem to hear with increasing regularity the reason for this is Gareth Southgate, both
00:31 his conservative approach and his favouritism towards certain players.
00:36 But is that true or is there something else going on here?
00:41 Let's have a look.
00:44 So this was the England team that set up against Ukraine and it was actually pretty similar
00:49 to sort of the favoured line-up from the World Cup, certainly the same shape.
00:53 The only differences were that Jon Stones and Luke Shaw were missing through injury.
00:57 Had they been fit they would almost certainly have started.
00:59 The only tactical change was instead of Phil Foden who started against France you had James
01:03 Madison because James Madison is a fantastic player and if there's a way you can fit him
01:08 into this England side you should absolutely try to do it.
01:11 Now the blame for this draw if you can really call it that isn't really in proportion to
01:15 any one player.
01:16 Nobody really stood out as having a particular bad game but given that there was controversy
01:20 behind the selections of Harry Maguire at right centre back and Jordan Henderson, neither
01:25 of whom are playing what you would call top division football at the minute, one because
01:29 he's not playing any football and the other because he's in Saudi Arabia, they kind of
01:33 seem to be where a lot of the conversation is happening certainly.
01:37 And the thing is these two are actually very symbolic of the problems Gareth Southgate
01:40 is currently facing as England manager because realistically neither of them should be in
01:45 the England first eleven but the fact is they are two players who have to be in the England
01:51 first eleven.
01:52 Going to start with Harry Maguire here because ages ago when we were just starting to get
01:56 442 back up and hardly anybody was watching us we did a video on why Harry Maguire always
02:01 plays for England and just the very short version of that video is that even when Harry
02:05 Maguire is out of form at Manchester United, even when Harry Maguire is out of the team
02:09 at Manchester United, he continues to play not only really well but a very important
02:14 role for this specific England team.
02:16 The whole base structure that Gareth Southgate has regardless of what shape they're playing
02:19 at the top end of the pitch involves this triangle between Pickford, Stones and Maguire.
02:24 The three of them just have this excellent understanding together, the importance of
02:27 which cannot be downplayed in international football, like how many times you see them
02:31 get in the muddle or get mixed up or make a mistake or not look like they know what
02:35 they're doing.
02:36 They've been together as a three since like 2016, 2017, they've been through three major
02:40 tournaments together now and as a pairing, Stones and Maguire complement each other really
02:45 really well.
02:46 Like there was a lot of question marks over Maguire's inclusion in the starting XI heading
02:49 into the last World Cup but then he went on and had a low-key fantastic tournament.
02:54 Like if we look at his FB ref profile purely from that tournament, he was arguably the
02:58 best in possession centre-back in the entire competition.
03:01 Like his contribution to moving England up the pitch, to the build-up phase, to getting
03:05 involved everywhere was just sublime.
03:08 Harry Maguire is in that England squad because of his ability to break through presses, to
03:12 carry the ball into more dangerous areas, to play long and medium-range passes, to effectively
03:17 allow England to relieve pressure in their own third and get the ball further up the
03:21 pitch quicker.
03:22 Now don't get me wrong, he was absolutely awful for Manchester United going into the
03:25 tournament, he was awful for Manchester United going out of the tournament and I can absolutely
03:29 understand why he doesn't even get within a sniff of the starting XI for Eric Ten Hag's
03:34 team now but the fact is you put him in this team, in this system, around these other players
03:40 and he has always done an excellent, excellent job.
03:42 So you can't drop a player like that.
03:44 So Maguire always plays because he always plays pretty well.
03:48 And then of course there's Jordan Henderson who feels like an even more baffling pick
03:51 because while yes he is currently in a first XI and getting game time, it's a first XI
03:57 and game time that's in the Saudi Pro League.
04:00 And of course no offence to any Saudi Arabian Pro League fans who are watching this video
04:04 but I think at the time of recording it's still like the 47th best league in the world.
04:09 Getting better, certainly, but still nowhere near a top division.
04:13 So again, why does Jordan Henderson play for England?
04:16 Well because when Jordan Henderson plays for England he has thus far played pretty well
04:20 and you can't just chuck him out and throw somebody else in because he's currently doing
04:24 a very important job in this team.
04:26 Like I don't think this really gets talked about but Henderson had his time as a starter
04:30 for England and he sort of fell out of favour, he fell out of the starting XI around the
04:34 time of the last Euros and only recently, towards the last World Cup, came back into
04:38 it and has cemented his place.
04:41 And he's not back in because of Calvin Phillips, I know that's the player he sort of directly
04:44 replaced but that's not why he got back into this England team, he got back in because
04:48 of Jude Bellingham.
04:49 Like if you can remember all the way back to those Euros, going into the really big
04:53 games, England never played like a 4-2-3-1 or a 4-3-3, they always had like a 3, let
04:58 me just line this up nicely, like a 3-4-3, didn't they?
05:03 And how Southgate wanted this to work was the two wide players, Stirling and Saka, normally
05:07 they got in nice and tight, so they were both a goal threat.
05:10 You had Kieran Trippier who would push up to this side to provide long balls and crossing,
05:14 you would have Luke Shaw who would get on the overlap, you remember the Italy goal,
05:17 that's exactly how that worked.
05:19 And then out of these two you had Walker, who was free to sort of push into the half
05:22 space and move up the pitch, and Harry Maguire here who was free to hit long balls and passing
05:26 and carry that as well.
05:27 Now what you may be noticing from this system is that it is a complete waste of a player
05:31 like Jude Bellingham because you'd have to put him here.
05:34 Declan Rice and Calvin Phillips were perfect in this system because they were both very
05:38 disciplined, they were both good on the ball, they could both occasionally get up and support
05:41 if a numerical advantage was in the offing, but by and large they were there to provide
05:45 the stability to allow all this other stuff to go on around them.
05:49 But then Jude Bellingham breaks onto the scene and he is simply too good not to build this
05:53 team around, so Southgate kinda has.
05:56 And now what England have got is a 4-3-3 designed to allow Bellingham to do pretty much anything
06:00 he likes.
06:01 Again, another video we did on the channel how he kinda plays three positions at once,
06:04 he can push up into the 10, that's why he's wearing it, and he can sort of influence things
06:08 in that part of the pitch.
06:09 In other phases he can sort of be as part of a midfield three and help create overloads
06:13 in that area, give England numerical superiority, but also because there's only one pivot and
06:18 they're not doing a 4-2-3-1, he is also able to drop back in front of the defence without
06:24 that area being completely crowded.
06:26 It's a system designed to allow Bellingham to get on the ball in any area of the pitch
06:30 he wants without that area of the pitch then becoming overcrowded.
06:34 But as good as Bellingham is, the way that works as a system requires you to have a counterbalance
06:39 on the other side of midfield, someone who will see what his teammate is doing and adjust
06:44 his game accordingly.
06:45 If Bellingham pushes right the way up, Henderson is a good enough reader of the game as he
06:48 will sort of be a bit more conservative and effectively give them then a double pivot
06:52 so they're not getting swamped in the middle.
06:54 It's even more important off the ball because Bellingham is so important to England's press.
06:57 Like for everything Harry Kane does really well at this stage of his career, he can't
07:01 go around chasing defenders around trying to close down loads of passing lanes, so Bellingham's
07:05 really important for shutting areas of the pitch off.
07:08 Now if he did that and got drawn into it, that would leave Declan Rice exposed completely
07:12 on his own, so again Henderson very good at recognising what gaps are being created, what
07:17 will happen if the press is beaten and filling that area accordingly.
07:20 Like just as a very throwaway example of this, and I appreciate it sounds a bit stupid, that
07:25 first goal England conceded against France was, in terms of how this structure works,
07:30 a really good example of how good it is, despite the fact they conceded.
07:33 Kyle Walker was being very cautious in that game with Mbappe, but the one time he did
07:37 get right behind him and England should have created something down that side were it not
07:41 for a blatant foul that was ignored, Mbappe had the entire channel of the pitch to run
07:46 into except, no he didn't because Jordan Henderson was reading the game really well and came
07:51 across to block that.
07:52 And by the time I think it was Touchemeni, that's about 8 pints deep at that point, lashes
07:56 one in from 25 yards, England have from a counterattacking situation, reformed their
08:01 defensive structure really, really well.
08:03 Like it took a superb goal like that to break them down.
08:07 So again, Jordan Henderson is in this England squad because he currently does a really good
08:12 job in this England squad and has not yet started doing it badly.
08:16 But the really annoying thing for Gareth Southgate is that these two players have created such
08:21 a distraction around themselves by the choices they've made in this summer.
08:24 Like they're very important to how England currently play, but they've made themselves
08:29 a huge talking point.
08:30 Like Maguire's decision not to just go to West Ham and play football, to stay and fight
08:34 for his place means that every time he's in this England squad, Southgate's going to get
08:38 grilled about it.
08:39 And Henderson, despite what he may have said, decided to go and take a huge sum of money
08:43 in Saudi Arabia means he's an even bigger talking point.
08:47 But hang on a minute, Adam, if they're actually good players and they play well for England,
08:51 then why was the Ukraine game crap?
08:53 Why couldn't they really do anything on the ball?
08:55 And yeah, fair point.
08:56 It was a pretty bad performance.
08:58 It was uninspiring.
08:59 It was lacklustre.
09:00 It didn't seem particularly dangerous, but it's football.
09:03 It happens.
09:04 Like John Stones is absolutely vital to how England build up and he wasn't there.
09:08 Mark Gay's a great player.
09:09 He'll do a good job when called upon.
09:10 But if we just look at this, he didn't pass the ball forwards hardly at all.
09:14 And John Stones, when he's in that England squad, almost exclusively passes the ball forward.
09:18 So you take that out, it's harder to build things up.
09:20 They were clearly conducting some sort of experiment with Madison and Bellingham as
09:24 well.
09:25 Like Madison kept moving into the 10 area to allow Bellingham to go out to this side
09:28 to get on the ball and the space that created.
09:30 But also they would occasionally just completely swap around.
09:33 Madison would then get on the ball deep to try and drive it forward and Bellingham would
09:36 stay out wide and cover across.
09:38 It didn't really work.
09:39 Nothing really came about from that area of the pitch.
09:41 But given how talented they both are and how comfortable they were doing it, it's worth
09:45 giving it a go.
09:46 Let me just decide from that.
09:47 Ukraine aren't a bad team.
09:49 It's not a terrible result to draw with them in a quote unquote away game.
09:53 Like France dropped points in the exact same fixture in World Cup qualifying.
09:56 They put three past Germany quite recently.
09:58 They're not a terrible side.
10:00 Now don't get me wrong.
10:01 I believe very strongly that as a manager, Gareth Southgate is one that struggles to
10:04 impact games as they're actually unfolding in front of them.
10:08 Substitutions can often be slightly destabilising or even if they are good, they tend to come
10:12 a little bit later than they really should have done.
10:14 But that is a marginal, marginal difference you're talking about making to a team.
10:19 Not something that could revolutionise their fortune.
10:21 But here's the thing, right?
10:22 This is the entire crux of this video.
10:24 You may be asking yourself, well Adam, if England are so good, then why are they so
10:29 bad?
10:30 This is clearly an incredibly talented crop of players all coming through at a similar
10:34 time.
10:35 They've got this good understanding, this good experience, these exciting young players.
10:38 If they're so good, why aren't they good?
10:40 And this is the thing that we all as a nation of football fans, myself included, really
10:46 struggle with.
10:47 This is what a dominant international team actually looks like.
10:52 Yeah, I can see you spot your coffee all over your screen at that one.
10:55 Yeah, honestly, trust me on this.
10:57 This is what dominance at international level actually sort of looks like.
11:02 And I know, honestly, I struggle to get my head around it sometimes as well.
11:05 Like you'll be a Premier League fan, for example.
11:07 Let's say you support a team at the bottom half of the Premier League.
11:09 You probably still watch loads of Man City, Liverpool, of all the top, top sides, and
11:14 you see what they do to good clubs every single week.
11:19 How they destroy teams, how they stop teams sitting in, how they always find a way to
11:24 score lots of goals.
11:25 To you, to all of us, that's what a dominant football team looks like.
11:29 But you just don't get that at international level.
11:33 Those teams are so good because they're drilled every single day by a manager who's got a
11:38 really clear philosophy that they can all buy into.
11:41 And when they don't, they buy specific players with very certain skill sets designed to fix
11:46 specific holes in the team.
11:48 That's how you get that good.
11:50 It just doesn't exist at international level.
11:53 You get to train with these guys a couple of times a month at the absolute most.
11:57 You don't go out to pick specific players to do specific jobs.
12:01 You have to work with what you've got.
12:03 You're constantly cramming square pegs into round holes.
12:07 And this is about as good as it ever gets.
12:10 Just look at the rest of the European Championship qualifying groups.
12:14 Like Spain got beat off Scotland and have Georgia and Norway breathing down their necks
12:20 to get that final automatic qualification spot.
12:22 But they're still a really good team.
12:24 Italy are in England's group and they couldn't beat England with 10 men.
12:29 And then they drew to Macedonia.
12:32 They are the reigning European champions.
12:34 They're a good team.
12:36 Croatia always fancied at these tournaments, always seemed to pull something together.
12:39 They dropped points at Wales, a Wales side who have scored less goals than Kosovo.
12:44 Portugal, though, right?
12:45 Portugal have been really dominant in qualifying.
12:47 They haven't even conceded a single goal yet.
12:49 And yeah, they went out of the World Cup to 10 man Morocco and they've just squeezed past
12:54 10 man Iceland in the 89th minute.
12:58 And their press are having an inquest over how they can be so uninspiring and so negative.
13:02 France, of course, going into this tournament as favourites have scored four less goals
13:06 than England in qualifying and just squeezed past Ireland 1-0 in March.
13:11 Like these were the player ratings that team got against Ireland.
13:14 Again, in the French press, they were accused of being uninspiring and too negative and
13:19 unable to break down well-organized teams.
13:22 Where have you heard that before?
13:23 Who else?
13:24 Netherlands currently level on points with Greece of all teams and also just squeezed
13:28 past Ireland in a game that got them absolutely hammered in their local press.
13:32 And Germany today have sacked a manager for the very first time in their history after
13:37 this result and this result and this result and this result.
13:44 Did you even see what the press in Argentina said about their team when they lost the opening
13:49 game of the World Cup to Saudi Arabia?
13:51 Oh, you didn't?
13:52 Well, stop me if this sounds familiar.
13:53 They're too conservative.
13:54 They're not attacking enough.
13:56 The substitutions are weird.
13:57 The managers out of his depth.
13:59 They can't break down teams that are organized.
14:01 They're squandering generational talents.
14:05 Just all the usual stuff.
14:06 So look, the point I'm trying to make here, and honestly, if you ever take a single thing
14:10 I say on this channel seriously, even if you don't quite believe it, please make it this.
14:15 If you are struggling to understand why England aren't more dominant at international football,
14:21 it's because this is what dominance of international football looks like.
14:25 Like it is always quite uninspiring.
14:27 It always looks a little bit conservative.
14:29 You're always scratching your head at the selections and the substitutions because of
14:32 the players you see at club level and what they do in those teams with those systems.
14:37 You think surely they can come on and do this at national level, but this is honestly about
14:42 as good as it gets.
14:43 Like, oh, they only got to that World Cup semifinal because they had an easy run.
14:47 And yeah, OK, but they still got there.
14:49 And oh, they missed their greatest chance to win a tournament because they were in the
14:52 final with Italy and didn't go on and win it.
14:54 But yeah, they got to that final.
14:57 Two things that no other England team with more exciting and attacking players and more
15:02 expressive and ambitious managers managed to do.
15:06 And there's a reason for that.
15:07 Do I think that England could get a better manager than Gareth Southgate?
15:10 Yes.
15:11 Yes, I do.
15:12 Do I think you should probably go after this tournament, whatever happens?
15:14 Yes.
15:15 Again, yes, I do think that.
15:16 But whoever comes in, whatever they do, I promise you, it's not going to be like flicking
15:21 a magic switch and they're going to win every game 6-0.
15:23 The best managers will still have it looking a little bit like this.
15:27 So yes, anyway, there you go.
15:29 That's what I think about all of that.
15:30 But please let me know what you think in the comments below.
15:32 Am I just completely out of my tree?
15:34 I do genuinely enjoy reading about it.
15:36 And of course, don't forget to subscribe to us here on 442.
15:38 It really, really does help the channel out every time we get new subscribers.
15:42 That's really good.
15:43 It shows that we're doing the right thing and then we show that to other people and
15:46 they're like, "Oh yeah, good job, mate."
15:47 And they pat us on the head and I like pats on the head.
15:49 You can get me on Twitter @adamcleary, C-L-E-R-Y.
15:52 All the 442 socials are just in the corner of the videos.
15:55 Check that out as well.
15:56 And until next we meet, when they've possibly got stuffed by Scotland, which would be a
16:01 good video, you know, views and all that.
16:05 I'll see you then.
16:06 Goodbye.