Why Gareth Southgate's England Tactics Aren't Working Yet

Right, yes, hi there, everybody. Adam Cleary 442 And I, like you, probably was really looking forward to this summer because I was told that A, the weather was going to be really nice and B, England were probably going to win the Euros. And yet as I sit here now on June, the whatever, I've had to come into work in a coat and jumper to explain why they just got beat off Iceland. This is obviously not what any of us were promised, but I'm here today to say that we should not panic yet. So this was your England 11 that started their second and final warm up game against Iceland on Friday and you probably saw it was not very good. Now, as you've no doubt seen over the weekend, a lot of people have been hysterical about this result. How can you be getting beat off Iceland? The players are rubbish, the managers are dope, the tactics don't work, they're all too tired, there's too many injuries. You've seen it all before. No, obviously, yes, it is a really bad result. You don't want your last preparation game before a big tournament to be getting beat off a team who are that much worse than you. But also it is just a preparation game and I think if nothing else, this Iceland game showed England what they absolutely desperately need to get right when they get to the tournament. Now if you have seen either of the two videos we've done here on 442 about England recently, then you will know precisely what I'm going to talk about. But there were two absolutely picture postcard examples of what's currently wrong. So a couple of seconds before Iceland's goal, England end up in this scenario here, right? Which is the situation after the last Premier League season I am calling the Man United gap. The midfield and the attack has been completely bypassed and now the defenders running back towards their own goal have this enormous amount of space in front of them. And just like in the real Manchester United gap, there's Koby menu sprinting back to try and help out, trying to cover that distance between the midfield and the defense. It's it's something he's seen plenty this season. And I would just like to point out, by the way, because I made this observation on Twitter during the game and I got loads of Man United fans getting angry at me for saying it was all his fault. I'm not saying it's his fault. This is actually has nothing to do with Kobe mania. We just keep finding himself in teams that are doing this anyway. Yes, right. So in this situation where the attacks all been bypassed and the defence are running back towards their own goal, they don't want to stay static in case the player with the ball, let's say that's him here, manages to play a pass in behind. And because they're standing there trying to sort of like be big and brave, someone just gets in behind. They keep backing off, they keep backing off, they keep backing off the alignment of the box, and it's a really good finish and some bad goalkeeping. Now, as any Man United fan will tell you, this scenario happens when there is too much of a gap between your midfield and your defense. In other words, because you're pressing high and being aggressive in this third of the pitch, but you're not pushing up to match it in this third of the pitch. Now, you only do this if you're worried about teams getting in behind you. If you cast your mind back to the Brazil game, England's previous set of just sort of warm up and get everything right fixtures, Brazil kept getting in behind because the defense was too high. We called it here on the Channel the one major problem that England need to fix. And to be fair, this is a solution. While this was a bad goal to concede, Iceland did not get in behind them. And while it does obviously help to solve that problem, it creates one all of its own because you can't believe in this much space between your midfield and your defense. And fair play to Gareth Southgate coming out for the second-half trailing one nil. They did immediately address this. Johnstones would come off now, but he got all the defense to push much further up the pitch. They weren't that worried about them getting in behind. They felt they had that under control with the pace in the back line. So they squeezed them up and said to stop that happening. And then Iceland should have gone two nil up because this time now they've squeezed all the way up the pitch, they leave themselves vulnerable to that run in behind and this was on side. Now whether you regard that as a bad ball across or just one of the worst finishes you've ever seen, that's entirely academic against a better team. Against any team at the EUR, I'd wager that's two nil. So quite the little predicament England have got, isn't it? Because when they all sit off, it leaves way too much room between the midfield and the defence that allows teams to play in. That's really bad. But when they press all the way up, it leaves too much room in behind and teams can break into there. So given the assumption that they are going to continue to press really high, how do you fix this issue? Because right now they're damned if they do, when they're damned if they don't. But would you look at that right on time, The whole point of the video and the thing we've been saying about this England team for a while, both of these goals, while they come from different defensive setups, are caused by the same thing at the other end of the pitch. If you want to press teams really high, you have to do it with a constant and eye watering level of intensity. Both of these Iceland chances, the one that score on the one that didn't come from them getting bypassed in this part of the pitch way too easily. So the goal starts with Iceland having the ball at the back. Harry Kane closes down the goalkeeper and leaves the cover shadow, whatever you want to call it to this defender here. Anthony Gordon jumps onto the wide pass, but they're not doing it consistently as a team and they leave this player open. Now, you can see this is obviously Phil Foden's man. He makes a real concerted effort to go and put the squeeze on, but he's just too slow to stop him turning and facing forward. Now, I'm just going to stop it right here because this is what England are trying to do with this new system, right? Imagine Phil Foden is five, 6-7 yards closer to this defender. The presence of Harry Kane means he can't go to the other center back, he probably can't go to the goalkeeper and Foden will stop him turning and going out wide. He would be in real, real trouble. But because they just haven't done it with the right amount of intensity, he manages to get turned, plays a simple pass. And now this time that's called Palmers man, and he makes a concerted effort to get out there. But again, he allows him to turn. Imagine he's two or three yards closer to this player, he would have absolutely nowhere to go. Rice's cut off the central pass, Foden's cut off the pass back, Kane's stopping it going into the middle. You can see here this is almost, almost working. Walker then jumps up next to the receiving player, but again, he's just a couple of yards too slow. Palmer doesn't notice the original player running past him. He gets off the back of his shoulder and they just play out into the centre. And just like that, that's simple. If then more or less got a three on three in England's half and this puts Copy Mania in this position where he doesn't really want to be because he's a fantastic ball playing centre midfielder. He's not some big disruptive number six who's going to come flying across here and snuff this out. That's not his game. It puts him in a really difficult position. He isn't going to get back across. So that pulls Stone slightly away from his man, allowing him to receive it. They keep going, they get into the box and like I said before, it is a good finish and a bit of bar goalkeeping. On another day, maybe that doesn't go in, but that's how the chance comes about. And it was nothing to do with how deep the defense were. It was because England weren't intense enough in their high press. And the second chance England have possession down Iceland's left, they try a nice little cut back. It's a pretty good attacking move, but it's just cut out and this as well as pressing is when you have to get your counter press right. Just again, before I say this, I cannot stress enough this is not me putting the blame on menu right. There are certain things in his game that he is brilliant art and certain things that do need a bit of improvement. The guy is a press resistance midfielder. You give him the ball and then teams try and get it off him and he just works a bit of magic around them. That's what he's good at. What he's not good at is pressuring the ball himself, but in this scenario it falls to him to do it. Now he's supposed to do here is because you have got other players nearing off the ball mainly has to hold the this player up. He has to stop him going around. He has to stop a pass happening. He has to kind of sort of force him to stay still. But instead, and this is a little bit of inexperience, maybe he thinks he can win the ball. Maybe he just gets a little bit excited. He gets played round and as soon as they're past him, it's wide open again. And this is what we mean by the intensity of the press, right? Because after he's bypassed menu, he's then able to carry the ball all the way to here with that single challenge going in and now England are in real trouble because he rolls it out to the right hand side. This player again is not pressured, he's not contested. He can pick his head up and the gap between him and the edge of the England defensive line is like what, 20 yards, absolutely bang on side. It sets him free and he should make that 2 nil. But once again, that's nothing to do with the position of the defensive line and everything to do with England not getting their press right. But The thing is, when they do get their press right, it works really well at the best chance in the first half came from doing this, but just doing it much better. Harry Kane goes after one of the center backs here, doesn't give him anytime on the ball. The obvious pass is out here to the right back, but Anthony Gordon is coming directly towards him, so we'll just have to turn around anyway. So instead they try and play out by using one of the central midfielders. But look this time how tight Declan Rice is to him. There is no chance of him getting turned this time. Phil Foden has got tight. He's cut off this simple pass to the middle, so his only options are to hit it blind across his own box to this other defender, which could very easily be cut out as an England player. He hasn't seen all go back to the goalkeeper, which he does, and this time Rice keeps the pressure on. He's determined not to give the goalkeeper anytime either. Now, in an ideal world, Cole Palmer would be here already, would be nearer this defender, but he breaks into his Sprint to close that pass down. So now the goalkeeper hasn't got a simple ball out either. So he does what he's supposed to do in that situation. He tries to set himself to clear it along by taking an extra touch, but Declan Rice on him does not allow him. That extra touch forces him into the mistake and Palmer should score from here. It is a question for you, right? Where are England's defenders while all this is going on? Do you think they're sitting deep? Maybe they pushed up onto the halfway line. What would you, what would you guess be for that? I'll give you, I'll give you a second. Yeah, Yeah, I'll tell you where they are, right? It doesn't matter when you are attempting to play this style of football. It does not matter what you are doing here if you are getting it right here and against Iceland, England were not. But all that being said, right, I think if you're an England fan, there still isn't any cause to panic, right? They need some fine tuning, absolutely. There's still things they need to get right, but they still more than had the chances to win this. Harry Kane should have scored here, Anthony Gordon should have scored here called Palmer should have scored here. They put those away, which they absolutely should have done then. It's just the most by the numbers pre tournament friendly you've ever seen. And you got to remember as well, this starting 11 is the one with virtually no synergy to it whatsoever. Like the England tournament, relative successes of the past have been built around the fact that these players play so well together as a unit. They know each other really well. They've got thousands of minutes together on the pitch for the national side, and this team does not. Because I cannot stress this enough, right? International football is not club football. It's a completely different thing. You don't get the benefits of hundreds and hundreds of hours of training with the exact same players all through the season. You get a fraction of the time, and if they're just not available for that camp, you might not see them for months. England having one of, if not the best defenses at the last three major tournaments and going pretty far in all of them as a result is majorly, majorly down to this consistency. So the point I'm trying to make, my dear friends, that if this England performance seemed weirdly disjointed and just unconnected to you, that is because by this team's usual standards, it was. And that's also why I don't think England fans should be panicking. But in terms of the connectivity around the pitch, obviously Pickford's going to start. That's really going to help with the defense for Kiosaka and Duke Bellingham, their bigger mainstays in this side. They'll come straight in for the tournament and that will really help. And in terms of getting the press right in the final third, you would imagine it'll be Connor Gallagher who comes in for these games rather than Colby Manor. And he is, you know, really good at that. So yeah, just all of that is a really long winded way of me saying, Oh yeah, bad result. But calm down. Also, can I just show you this? And I promise I'm not giving you the finger, right? Look at this. Look at the size of this one compare to this one. Think I'm pretty sure I've broken it making this absolutely worldly save playing football yesterday. Probably get this looked up. But anyway, if you have enjoyed the video today, please do consider subscribing to us here at 442 on YouTube. The Euros is right around the corner and we have something so incredibly special planned for the videos across the tournament. You do not want to miss it. I am incredibly, incredibly excited to show it to you. So you hit that button and you'll see every single one of them. Meanwhile, the latest issue of 442, which this is not also the latest edition of the world's greatest football magazine, 442 is in stores now for you to buy is the very, very special European Championship edition. And I read it cover to cover the other day and it was honestly fantastic. You can also subscribe to our newsletter, which is in the comments below. You can get me on all the social medias at Adam Cleary CLERY, the four two socials in the corner of the video and until well, tomorrow probably because we got loads to talk about this week. I have been Adam Cleary, this has been England. Don't panic, it's going to be absolutely fine and I'll see you soon. Bye.