How England Plan To Win Euro 2024 - Tactical Preview

Hello. Hello, hello, Hello, everybody. Adam Cleary from 442 here. And the Euros are finally, finally upon us. England are going to be there. Everyone thinks they're going to do really well. Is football finally going to come home? I don't know. But what I do know is that this England side probably represents the best chance. They have a major honour since EUR 96 and if you'll just kindly take a seat over there, we will go through precisely why that is what they will look to be doing, who needs to perform well for that to happen and where potentially it might all go wrong, which it won't. All right, so it is expected when England start the tournament against Serbia, I want to say Serbia is it. It's been a real long couple of days for me. I think it's Serbia anyway, the first game, this will be the starting 11 and this is not what Gareth Southgate would have wanted and that's because every tournament he has overseen so far, England have gotten as far as they have because of this defensive bedrock of Jordan Pickford, Stones McGuire, Kyle Walker and most of the time Luke Shaw. Luke Shaw may make an appearance later in the tournament but he won't be fully fit. Harry McGuire is gone entirely because he's not fit, John Stones will play but does not look fit, and Carl Walker apparently isn't even fit to. So that obviously is really bad. But The thing is, while all of Southgate, other tournaments have definitely been based around sort of being solid defensively and then seeing what you can do in the other end of the pitch, hence why he gets all these accusations of being negative and always picking his favourites and all of this, There's definitely been a shift in what England trying to do over the last 12 months. And it's the kind of shift that might make what's going on back here not that important. And this change in England's play style is about one thing holding two up, one thing and one thing only, right? I'm going to Rog Stew with it. Jude Bellingham. You see, this England side has, for the first time I think in my entire actual life, a genuine argument that they have the best player in the world. Now, whether he actually is or not is something that's probably going to run on and on and on for his entire career. But the very fact that England have a player in that conversation is worth building your entire team around. And thus what Gareth Southgate is trying to do is change England from being a sort of defensively sound, compact, solid, quick counter attacking sides, one of the most high pressing aggressive teams in the world. And how this works is all about trying to win the ball back in your oppositions defensive third, like turning it over somewhere where you can straight away go for goal. At the 2018 World Cup and the 2020 European Championships, England will rank average at doing this. Like on a per 90 minute basis. They were smack bang in the middle of all the teams at that tournament. They were doing it somewhere between once and once and 1/2 per match. But then at the last World Cup and guitar, they suddenly jumped from the middle of the pack here to the second most aggressive team at the tournament. They went from doing it once or once and 1/2 per match to doing it over three times per game. Now, that's actually a fairly major stylistic change to pull off in just one tournament cycle, but it happened really easily for England because of this graph. No player in that entire tournament, and bear in mind that England went out in the quarterfinals, so he wasn't even there as long as he could have been. No player won the ball back in the final third more than Jude Bellingham. Now, I could sit here and do an entire video on all the specific things that Jude Bellingham is clearly a generational talent app, but the one thing he wants to do on a football pitch more than anything else is play it here. The thing is, when you look at his defensive numbers on FB reference, like, Oh yeah, he's he's quite good at that. He's certainly not one of the best players in the world. But then you think about how much of the ball Real Madrid have, like how many chances does he realistically get to to do things like this. Then you realise that those bars might just look quite high, but in context they're amazing. So fundamentally, if England want to get the best out of Drew Bellingham, they need to join him in this mindset. They can't keep being a team that sits off and looks to force mistakes and then move quickly up the pitch. They need to win the ball back in the final third as well. Because that's the that's the thing about playing a high press. If just one player is doing it, then that's an idiot. He's just like leaving space everybody else and he's ruining everything. But if everybody does it, that's terrifying. And while the results of England 4 preparation games have not exactly inspired confidence, we have seen this high pressing style manifesting itself in every single one of them. Against Brazil and Belgium, they refused to give them anytime on the ball, even if that meant they got passed around and through by genuinely very good teams. And in the Iceland game in particular, which we did cover extensively right here on 442, all of England's best moments came from when the implemented this strategy well. And all of Iceland's best moments came from when they implemented this strategy badly. Like, bottom line, if your press is not aggressive enough, you will get played through, like England not getting played through here. And if your press is aggressive enough, then you will force mistakes out of the opposition and create chances like England are doing here. And I know he does have his critics and seemingly an awful lot of them, but you do have to give Gareth Southgate credit with just how unafraid to bring this system in he has been. Like Marcus Rashford and Jack Reelish are not in this squad not because of their club form, because that doesn't matter as much as people think it does at international level. They're not in the squad because they can't do this. Like those same defensive numbers I just showed you for Bellingham, right? These are Rashfords and Greelishes respectively. They're both capable of doing great things for England on the ball and out of possession, but they represent the old style of play and that is why somebody like Anthony Gordon is in the squad ahead of them. Like when you compare him to these two in this specific regard, he wipes the floor with them and people can't and I'm sure will still say things about Southgate like he's too defensive and negative or he's tactically limited or he picks his favourites and stuff. But this, what he's doing here is not any of those things. It's really positive and aggressive and it's actually tactically quite ambitious and certainly there are a lot of players in the squad who probably thought they were his favourites who are going to be sitting watching at home, just like me and you now then, so because of injury we know that England's back four probably picks itself and because of system we know their front four probably picks itself. But they do still have two fairly major problems. First off is what is the right profile? Who is the right player to go alongside Declan Rice in the middle and the other is what the you do with Phil Foden? First off, I think this will just be a situational decision Gareth Southgate tasks to make. Like for me it's got to be Connor Gallagher in the system because if you want to have this pressing style that suits Bellingham, he is the best player available to join in with that. You do need somebody to do the dog work in the centre so everyone else can thrive. But against teams that might well just try and be really defensive against England and low block and you're not really going to get the chance to win the ball back off Adam Wharton or Trent Alexander Arnold would really help them to open that up. I think they might here in the group stage, but also there will be games and situations where Koby menu looks absolutely vital. Like England historically do not control games, especially against the bigger teams particularly well. They haven't got the press resistance or the ball retention and menu offers them something here they've never ever had before. Like certain games you're not going to want him, but in other games you will need him. But anyway, the other big conundrum England have is Phil Foden, right? He should just start on the left. He can play there. He occasionally does for City. He's just won the Premier League player of the year. If they didn't have Bellingham, they'd be building everything around him. But the problem is that number one, being wide on the left is a complete waste of Phil Foden's ability. And you've never seen him have an impactful and effective game for England when he is stuck out there. And two, he's a really, really bad fit for this system that's designed to get the most out of Bellingham in terms of what he offers you. In this regard. He's practically the same as a Greenish or a Rashford as opposed to an Anthony Gordon. So the decision Gareth Southgate has to make is, is he so good? And we'll provide so many just intangible moments of magic that I don't care if he helps the system. Actually, if he's a detriment to it, is that worth it because he's just that good? And The thing is as well, if you look back over the numbers of what Foden does on the ball, this is Manchester City on the left here and this is England on the right. You can see really does struggle when they stick them out in one of those wide positions to have the same kind of impact like the passes into the final third, into the box, all the stuff you really need to do when you get on the ball. He finds it so much harder to do in this England system than he does at City. So I'll tell you this much right now. Like these ten players will almost certainly start that first England game. But I genuinely do not know if this is Phil Foden because he's just so good or it's Anthony Gordon because he fits what they're trying to do so much better. Like this is just me editorialising at this point, right? But if England do go the distance in this tournament, like forget about the injuries. Every team's going to have a load of injuries. We can't predict those. If they do go the distance in the tournament, I will bet you this starting 11 and possibly even the shape changes quite dramatically as it goes on. Like, I think genuinely England are simultaneously in a very bad but also very exciting position where there are still loads of question marks over this system and how it's going to work. But they have with them in that squad so many really talented players that can provide genuinely quite interesting answers. Like as a menu, Walton, Alexander, Arnold, Cole Palmer. I don't think any of those are likely to start that first game, but they could by the end of the group stages be the most important player in that side. And just saw one final thing, just in case anybody's tuned into this video to see if I have a big pop at Gareth Southgate or not, right? He's not without his limitations. I do think his use of substitutions is occasionally a bit hesitant or just a bit indecisive, but if one or two parts of this system click the way he is specifically trying to get them to click, England are going to be a real, real force in this tournament, and that is entirely down to him. I don't know, you might still write something horrible about him in the box down below. Please, absolutely feel free. It's as much your comment section as it is mine, and yours entitled to your opinion as I am to mine. But if my word is worth anything, anything to you, right? Just humour me for a second, right? Yes, he does have limitations. Yes, there are one or two issues with him. But if England do something at this tournament, it will be because he came up with a new tactical approach, he really committed to it and it was something that worked and is clearly quite an intelligent thing to do and you will simply have to hand it to him. But then yes, conversely, if they do have a stinker, then ultimately he fixed something that wasn't even broken and it's all his fault. And those zip up tops do look absolutely horrible. But until we find out which of those two realities we are living in, please do consider subscribing to us here on 4/4 2:00. We will be covering the life out of every single England game we are moving. Can I tell you about it now? We are moving into our brand new, very exciting, very sexy the Euro studio in the coming days. So you'll see all of this fun plus some new toys and trinkets over there. You don't want to miss this to do go and hit that button and you can get me on Twitter. Of course you can at Adam Cleary CLERY as well as all of the other socials. I'm going to leave that up now because I'd like it when people follow me. 442 socials in the corner of the video. The latest issue of the magazine is Euro centered, because of course it is and it is. Tada, absolutely brilliant. That was the Backpage. I didn't mean to do that, but it does come with a wall chart and a poster and all loads of fun stuff that you like to have and even some postcards. I think I got those with this one. They're really nice. But I until then I might not be able to tell you if it is coming home, but I can certainly tell you that it is getting on a bit. So I am going home. That's not a joke. Goodbye.