England started their Euro 2024 campaign with a 1-0 win over Serbia and in pole position to top the group. But, after dominating their opponents in the first half, Gareth Southgate's side lost control in the final stages and barely offered a threat. Adam Clery looks at why they were able to start so strong, and why Serbia's changes almost turned the game around.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00Right yes hello everybody Adam Cleary here from 442 and if you're wondering why this
00:08video is slightly late that's because while we don't know if football is coming home just
00:12yet I literally have right now today. Our good friends at Paddy Power see here yes they
00:18very kindly invited us over to the England game in Gelsenkirchen and I've only just got
00:21back which means I've had the whole time to think about the thing and we'll just get into
00:25it now. But I'm not going to bore you with all the details of the trip right now but
00:31suffice it to say oh my god that's the first time I've drank water in about three days.
00:37Right it's only far too hot under these lights to wear this thing. So England very very good
00:46in the first half got the goal dominated Serbia and then not very good in the second half
00:51and people are wondering why that is. Well it's easy to look at a couple of things in
00:55the system Trent Alexander-Arnold blew hot and cold Phil Foden struggled to make an impact
00:59Jude Bellingham visibly tired as the game went on and thus his impact was slightly reduced
01:04but it actually wasn't really any of this. Serbia made a pretty big change and England
01:09I don't want to say couldn't deal with it but certainly weren't in any rush to deal
01:13with it. So just to show you first of all why it worked so well in that first half because
01:17obviously we've talked a lot about this England system and about how they're going to be this
01:21aggressive high-pressing team that look to box teams into their own half, steal it in
01:25the final 30 here and then create chances from there. But Serbia they... oh wait can
01:31I do that joke? I don't know. Can I say Serbia were about as interested as playing out from
01:35the back... I don't think I should say that. Were about as interested as playing out from
01:44the back as Rio Ferdinand is in a cohesive sentence. That'll do. Like genuinely if you
01:49don't believe me on that this is the pass map of the Serbian goalkeeper, forgive me
01:53I forget his name, from the entire match. It is just all long, it is all straight in
01:57England's half. Whether this is something they do or something they did specifically
02:01here I don't know, forgive me I haven't watched that much Serbia in the last 12 months but
02:05England were never going to get the opportunity really to win it back here so there was no
02:09point in trying. So instead they tweaked the system and they tweaked it in a really really
02:14interesting way. I don't know if this came across on television but it genuinely shocked
02:17me to see it in the stands. Rather than sort of the double pivot 2-3-1 that we were expecting
02:23they were just quite happy to let Declan Rice be the sole number 6 on his own and Alexander
02:28Arnold played further forward. Now obviously this theoretically leaves Rice more exposed
02:33but what they were using it to do was deal with the Serbian long ball threat. Basically
02:38just imagine everybody's all bunched up in the middle here rather than spread over the
02:41pitch. Every single time Serbia looked to go long from the back, be that the goalkeeper
02:45or any of the defenders, Declan Rice just dropped right between Stones and Gay, they
02:49sort of compacted themselves a lot closer to the Serbian front three, basically going
02:54man for man there and then took it in turns to challenge for the ball while the other
02:58two swept round behind. Rice was basically playing as a centre back when Serbia had the
03:03ball. In fact if we just look at specifically the unsuccessful passes he made, the ones
03:07England gobbled up, they were all in this central area where Gay, Stones and Rice were
03:11and that's because they had the right number of players, they adapted to what Serbia were
03:15going to do really well. But way, way, way, way more interesting than what they were doing
03:19with this shape off the ball was what it was allowing them to do on the ball and the attacking
03:24shape they were forming was not what anybody was expecting. So I've got no idea if this
03:29came across on telly and I certainly can't find any good bits of it with everybody in
03:32it at the same time but thankfully I was there so I've taken this photo, sorry UEFA and this
03:39is England building up for the majority of the first half in what you can only describe
03:44as like a three diamond three. So you can see here there's sort of a back three being
03:49formed that's Gay, Stones and Kyle Walker tucking in giving them this nice little diamond
03:54with Declan Rice which is what they were using for their build up, they were playing around
03:57Serbia's press quite nicely with that. Then from there Kieran Trippier was going all the
04:02way up to the wide left position pretty much in the same line as Harry Kane and Bukayo
04:06Saka and then from there you had Trent Alexander-Arnold moving out to the right in sort of the half
04:11space that Saka left which is where everybody agrees he is at his best, you had Bellingham
04:15and Rice sort of as the two in the middle and then Foden again in the same half space
04:19on the other side outside Trippier, inside Trippier, oh that sounds gross. And this theoretically
04:24solves most of England's problems with this selection because you've got Trippier holding
04:29the width all the way over on this side which is not his game at all but it does drag the
04:33defender out, allows Foden to play in the channel where he's much better and you've
04:37got Saka and Alexander-Arnold sort of rotating between who's on the byline and who comes
04:42inside because they can both play that really well, it was allowing Alexander-Arnold to
04:46get into that quote unquote Beckham area. And you saw it beautifully for the goal, like
04:51I know it's just a Bellingham thing and he's getting all the credit for it but actually
04:54it's one of the best looking team goals I think I've ever seen England score, like it's
04:59near perfect running from several different players to create that opportunity and it's
05:03sort of born out of this mad system they were doing. So if we look at Kyle Walker's position
05:08in the build-up, obviously he's way further forward on that right-hand side but he's come,
05:11he's travelled all the way from this sort of right-sided back three position, you can
05:15see the remnants of the diamond there. Then, and this bit is obviously quite subtle, you
05:19can see Trent Alexander-Arnold's coming out of that area over to the right-hand side pulling
05:24this midfielder with him, creating this nice big gap between the two lines that England
05:29want to have people in, specifically Phil Foden and Jude Bellingham. But if we just
05:33look all the way down here, who is the left-sided attacker? It's not Phil Foden, it's not Jude
05:38Bellingham, it's Kieran Trippier, he's come all the way forward, he's on the exact same
05:43line as Harry Kane as England get into the final 30 here. You would think for all the
05:47world that's the position he was playing. Now the pass from Walker is fantastic, they
05:51get Saka in behind, but from here it's pretty much a textbook example of how you use a man
05:57advantage to create space in the box and score a goal. So first off, two key moments. This
06:02defender has a look over his shoulder, sees Kieran Trippier, knows he can't over-commit,
06:06he's got to watch that back post run. Second key bit, this defender here has a look over
06:09his shoulder, sees Phil Foden, knows he's got to match that run into the box, so these
06:14two are now locked off. Now that leaves one defender with Harry Kane, but if we just look
06:18at the point the cross is coming in, there's no space for anybody to get in. Serbia are
06:22well set here, they've got the runs blocked off, they know exactly where they need to
06:26be, there's not an opportunity. Now if you're Phil Foden, you are not going to score a goal
06:31from a cross in this position, but that is not why he's there. He's making sure he takes
06:36this man as far away from the front post as possible, leaving a bit of room. And if you're
06:40Harry Kane, you probably don't want to go near post with this necessarily, you probably
06:45want the cross to come over the defender, so you can get the header back across the
06:49goalkeeper. But again, he makes that run near post into the space that Foden has freed up
06:54for him. Now if we just jump forward a few fractions of a second, you can see now that
06:59because this defender can't over-commit because he knows Trippier's there, Kane's run is now
07:03made just a couple of yards right outside the six-yard box, and that's exactly where
07:09Jude Bellingham is going. By the time Muggins here realises precisely what's happened, it
07:14is too late, he's moved into the space, and he's finished that chance off. It's honestly
07:18about as picture-perfect an example of how to execute that system as you could possibly
07:24hope for. Oh, so that's great then! Adam England were just fantastic, were they? They had this
07:28really clever system and Serbia couldn't live with it. They must have gone on and won 4-0
07:32then, eh? Dickhead. Well obviously no, it's finished 1-0. Serbia wrestled some control
07:37back from England, and the way they did that was just by making one substitution. Good
07:43El, and I apologise to any Serbians watching if that's absolutely mangled, but he comes
07:47off with an injury and they replace him with Illich, who's a very different player. One
07:51is sort of a destroyer, was looking to break up England's play, and the other really likes
07:55being on the ball. Now this didn't change Serbia's system too much, they were still
07:59looking to go along with it out from the back, they weren't looking to sort of try and build
08:03through England, but because he was there, and they were less reliant on one player to
08:06do a lot of the chasing round, they just simply went for a man-for-man system while England
08:11were building up. They didn't worry about the space anymore, they just knew where England
08:15were going to be and they locked onto them. Now obviously this was going to leave England
08:18a little bit more exposed. You've got your left back all the way up here, you've got
08:21one of your centre midfielders all the way out there, you've got your sort of full players
08:24building up in a really sort of compact area. It's very easy to press that, so sensibly
08:29they sort of went back to their normal sort of shape. And I think it was here that the
08:33nation as a whole started to notice that Phil Foden was really struggling to get in the
08:37game and thus England were having one of the traditional summer problems. Because when
08:42you are forced to abandon that 3-4-3 because you're not entirely confident building out
08:46with it and you just go to this, you then get to see why they were doing it in the first
08:51place because this, with Bellingham and Foden in it, has problems. One of the easiest ways
08:56to illustrate this for you, right, is that this is Phil Foden's heat map from that game,
09:00I'm just going to give you a second, you can take all that in, have a look at it, where's
09:04all the bits, where's the red, where's the yellow, right, commit that to memory. Now
09:07this is Jude Bellingham's heat map and what is no doubt immediately apparent to you is
09:13that they are virtually identical. Now obviously that's because you've got one player who's
09:18starting as the 10 who likes to drift out into that left half space to get on the ball,
09:21that's Bellingham's game, we love that about him, and the other is you've got a player
09:24stuck out on the left wing who wants to be coming in to the number 10 role, so it all
09:28kind of averages out as largely the same thing. And not to sound like someone coaching a bunch
09:33of six-year-olds here, even though this is something you would coach to a bunch of six-year-olds,
09:37the problem with that is that when one of them gets on the ball, it means the other
09:41player wants to be in that space, so instead of making the sort of run that could open
09:45up a defence, instead of stretching the opposition, they just kind of show for the ball, they
09:50want it. And that, in the final third of the pitch at the European Championships, doth
09:55butter no pass nips. If either Foden or Bellingham are getting on the ball here, they don't
10:01want to make a two-yard pass to somebody who's going to do something else with it,
10:04they want to make an incisive pass, they want to make a killer ball, they want to open up
10:08the defence, and if someone's trying to play the same position as you, they're not going
10:12to give you that option. This is Phil Foden's pass map from the match. He obviously gets
10:18on the ball loads, but you can just sort of see, when we get to the final third, when
10:21we get in and around the box, so many of these are very short, backwards, sideways passes,
10:27he's just moving the ball around. So rarely is he able to find the overlapping run from
10:32the full-back, because Kieran Trippier won't be doing that. He can't find Bellingham getting
10:36into the box, because he's not going to do that, he wants to be in that area, getting
10:41on the ball. So it's sort of, it's kind of like you're playing with ten, if two of you
10:45were doing the same thing. This was pretty much the story of the second half. Serbia
10:49looked way more comfortable on the ball, because they brought on a player who was way more
10:52comfortable on the ball, and England looked short of ideas, because they'd moved to a
10:56system where it was far harder to have ideas. And obviously the other problem with this
11:00system, which everybody identified in the build-up, was Kieran Trippier. Like, you need
11:05somewhere, someone with a natural left foot on that side, otherwise all your passes are
11:10going to be sideways, they're going to be backwards, they're going to be in field, and
11:13you're never going to get round your opponent. And if we look at Kieran Trippier's pass map,
11:18well, there it is! There's a man with no left foot playing on the left side, every time
11:23he gets in this area, which is such a dangerous position to be getting your fullback into,
11:28the ball comes back inside, it's short, it's a one-sort-of-trick right-footed pass, usually
11:34back to Phil Foden. There were so many times when a left-footed player would have gone
11:38around the outside, given them something else to think about, but that's just, give him
11:43his due, not his game. And I will say, just at this point, if it sounds like I'm down
11:47on this performance, like I'm absolutely not. If Harry Kane doesn't have that one to save
11:52applied to him in the second half, well, it's that a team came out with a much better system,
11:56got a goal through it, and then, when the tide started to turn, just sat back, soaked
12:00up the pressure, were professional, popped it around, and found a goal in the spaces
12:04the opposition left open for them. But, bar for the width of a crossbar, that didn't happen.
12:10I thought this was fine overall, just there were alarming elements. And there's a load
12:14of other talking points that I've seen people sort of getting into today. I thought Trent
12:17Alexander-Arnold was actually pretty good, he was cutting out passing lanes, he was actually
12:21defending pretty well, which I know is not supposed to be his thing, and you could see,
12:25you could see the Serbians doing that, you know, that comedy-like, neck-pull-do-o-o-o-y
12:29thing every time he got on the ball. Mark Gay, I thought, looked like he'd been playing
12:33centre-back for England for about 15 years, which, given his was the inexperience factor
12:37that we're all worried about, was incredibly relieving. I've got no concerns about him
12:42there. And Jordan Pickford, he did his screaming and shouting and cursing out the world every
12:47time he's forced to play in goal, even though he's a goalkeeper bit. And, as for Harry Kane,
12:52yes, he was doing a very good impression of Ronaldo during his second spell at Manchester
12:56United, but there were large parts of that game when England just needed to move up to
12:59the pitch, and I thought his hold-up play was excellent. Other games will be different
13:04to this, and you'll see a different Harry Kane as a result. No cause for concern there.
13:08IMO, IMO, IMO. But yeah, that's kind of it, really. Like, if the first game in a tournament,
13:14you're always going to want to grow into it, rather than just, like, being the finished
13:17article on day one, and everybody figuring you're out by the knockout stages. I thought
13:21it was a professional performance from England, if not an overly exciting one. I think we'll
13:25be absolutely fine in the rest of the group. And as Belgium have just proved, like, all
13:29of a few minutes ago on the telly behind me, nothing is guaranteed in your first game,
13:33or indeed any game. So this is, that's it. Three points, job done, move on. But yeah,
13:38speaking of job done, I do now desperately need to go and have some rehydration salts,
13:42so we're going to leave it there for a day. If you watched the England game, or even if
13:45you didn't and you just like to talk on the internet, let us know what you thought of
13:48it in the comments below. Do you think that was a good performance? Do you think that
13:50was a concerning performance? Or thoughts, or feelings, anything going on in your little
13:54head, we would like to hear it. In the meantime, though, yes, hello, welcome to our brand new,
13:58exciting Eurostudio. Maybe I should have said that at the start of the video, possibly a
14:01little bit weird now. We are going to spruce it up and do some little things, and I will
14:05deal with the fact that this is the most unflattering lighting I have ever stood in front of. So
14:08if you don't want to miss all that, then please do subscribe to us here at 442. We'll be covering
14:13the Euros to within an inch of its life, and you don't like missing stuff, because nobody does. So
14:18if you hit that, then you won't. Elsewhere, though, if reading is more your thing, I have here the
14:22latest issue of the 442 magazine, the best football magazine in the world, in both my opinion and that
14:27of my mother. So do get that at all good retailers, and do the crap ones as well. It's packed more
14:32of European championship stuff than, let's see, my WhatsApp over the next five weeks.
14:43That joke was terrible, but the magazine isn't. In the meantime, though, as ever,
14:46thank you very much for watching. Get me on all the socials, Adam Cleary, CLEOI,
14:49the 442 ones are in the corner of the video. And until next we meet, which if I've got time,
14:54maybe talking about the France game, then I will see you soon. Farewell.