England are three months away from what could be some of the most important games in their modern history. The prospect of playing tournament football in a packed Wembley would be thrilling in normal life, never mind after the events of the last year.
But as the European Championship moves closer into view, we still have to wrestle with that old question that has been there for years now: how good is this team that Gareth Southgate has built? And how will they fare when they face opposition with much more serious-end tournament experience than they have?
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Assessing the level of an international team is infamously difficult. In normal times, you only have a few isolated games here and there to go on, many of them settled by a lucky bounce or a bad decision. The COVID-19 break makes things even harder. England did not play from November 2019 until September 2020, and then returned to a ludicrous schedule: two Nations League games midway through pre-season in September, then three games in both October and November.
So if we want to know how England are shaping up for this summer’s delayed Euros, how far do we have to go back?
All the way back to England’s last tournament, the World Cup in Russia almost three years ago? Even now people are still divided about how best to read that summer of football. Was it a young England team throwing off the shackles of recent history and bravely playing their way to within 23 minutes of a first World Cup final since 1966? Or was it a team who got lucky with their draw, created almost nothing from open play, losing the three times they faced serious opposition?
If you wanted more recent evidence, you could take the 2018-19 Nations League campaign, when Gareth Southgate abandoned the 3-5-2 for a 4-3-3 and recorded some of the best results of his tenure. England beat Spain 3-2 in Seville and Croatia 2-1 at Wembley, securing their place at the finals in Portugal in June 2019. But then they lost 3-1 to Holland in Guimaraes and looked once again like a team who struggled against the best when it mattered.
You could look at England’s qualification campaign for the Euros where, one bad night in Prague aside, they strolled through. England won seven of their eight games and scored 37 goals, making them the most potent attacking force in Europe over the competition. (Belgium scored 40 goals and Italy 37 but over 10 games.)
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All of that, of course, was before COVID-19. You might think football has changed so much in the last year that it barely matters how good England were in 2019. And there was an international campaign of sorts last autumn you could judge England by. When they beat Belgium at home it felt like a big step forward. When they lost to Denmark at home and Belgium away, two steps back, and no place in the Nations League final.
All of which is a very long way of saying that the jury is still very much out on Southgate’s England, and any fair sense of their real level. And the question of how they will do under the pressure of a home tournament will only be clear out on the pitch at Wembley three months from now.
What we can say with certainty is that England go into this tournament with more attacking and creative talent than they have had at their disposal since the 2006 World Cup, if not earlier. England showed glimmers in Russia but their new generation of attacking players has grown bigger than ever.
At the heart of it all is Harry Kane, the England captain and a player now elevating himself to the level of the great England strikers of the recent past, Wayne Rooney, Michael Owen and Alan Shearer. Kane won the golden boot at the last World Cup and he is a more complete player now than he was then, dominating games for Tottenham Hotspur in his nine-and-a-half role. He might not win a club trophy this season, but he is the favourite for the Football Writers’ Association (FWA) player of the year.
Then there is Raheem Sterling. He was unfairly criticised for his performances in Russia but has got better and better since then. He won another Premier League title and picked up FWA player of the year in 2018-19, then hit 20 league goals for the first time last season. Like most players, he is looking tired right now but remains as important as ever for Manchester City and England.
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In Russia, those two had to do the bulk of England’s attacking by themselves, but Southgate now has plenty of other dangerous options. Marcus Rashford enjoyed his best season for Manchester United in 2019-20 and Jadon Sancho was at his potent best for Borussia Dortmund before suffering a leg injury. Then there is Jack Grealish, overlooked by Southgate for so long but now unignorable due to his form for Aston Villa. He will not be there for this month’s internationals but the public clamour for him to start for England at the Euros grows every time he plays.
Even in midfield, England look better set than they were three years ago. The all-energy approach has been replaced by something more creative. Jordan Henderson is injured, Dele Alli has largely been frozen out at Spurs and Jesse Lingard has only just forced his way back into Southgate’s thoughts. Declan Rice is the holder now and England have new creative players in Mason Mount and Phil Foden, giving them a dimension they clearly lacked in the semi-final defeats by Croatia in 2018 and Holland in 2019. Two big games where England failed to keep hold of the ball.
You might think that this sets them up to play the most expansive attacking football we have ever seen from an England side. There are certainly people who would like to see a 4-3-3 with Mount and Foden in midfield and a front line of Grealish, Sterling and Kane. For the first time perhaps ever, they would have better technical ability in attacking positions than any other country.
But then the reality of how England will set up at the Euros is likely to be different. Although England had plenty of success with the 4-3-3 after the World Cup, last year Southgate decided to go back to a back-three system. It meant sacrificing an attacking player to bring Kyle Walker back into precisely the same role he played at the World Cup, on the right of a back three, covering for the right wing-back and providing a bit of speed at the back against the opposition counter-attack. Southgate was sacrificing creativity for security.
This deprivation of another attacking player has seen Southgate take plenty of criticism. Put Henderson and Rice in front of the five-man defence and you only have three spots left for your forwards and creative players. Dreams of combining Foden and Grealish are dashed in a system such as this.
In Southgate’s defence, the back three looks like the best approach for the harder games England will have at the Euros. England’s tournament will only be defined by facing Croatia, Scotland and the Czech Republic in the group stage if things go badly wrong. It will likely come down to how England fare when they get into the knockout rounds. If England win their group, they will face the second-placed team from Group F, which contains Portugal, France and Germany. And that game that will be a very different prospect. (If England come second in Group D, they will most likely play Poland, Sweden or Slovakia in the last 16).
Critics of the back-three system should ask themselves how an expansive 4-3-3 would hold up against France or Germany. Would you want to have John Stones and Harry Maguire as the two centre-backs, with both full-backs pushed up and just one holding midfielder for protection? How would you feel, as an England fan, the first time Paul Pogba chipped a perfect pass over the top for Kylian Mbappe to run onto, gathering speed across the pitch as Maguire started to turn to face his own goal? You can substitute in Toni Kroos and Serge Gnabry, or Bernardo Silva and Joao Felix, but the outcome would be the same.
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That, in a single hypothetical moment, is the case for bringing Walker back into the defence. He is still England’s fastest defender and a master at shutting down counter-attacks. With him in a back three alongside Maguire and Stones, England have a chance of getting out of these harder games alive.
What this means is that the England team is likely to look very similar to how it did back in Russia. Walker, Stones and Maguire is now the likely back three. Trent Alexander-Arnold’s surprise dropping means that Kieran Trippier is likely to stay on at right wing-back. Luke Shaw is now the favourite on the opposite side.
But the challenge for Southgate, if he uses that back three, is how he can still make the most of England’s new attacking talent. Clearly, playing Henderson and Rice in front of the defence limits his options. But with Henderson out injured right now, Southgate has a rare opportunity to try something different. This could be a chance to start Mount or Foden with Rice in the middle and give England a more creative base. Or to play both of them with Kane and Sterling leading the attack.
However these three games go, the real prize is not the qualifying points for the World Cup in Qatar next year. It is the chance to clarify and an opportunity for Southgate, four and a half years into his England tenure, to continue tweaking and adjusting, pursuing that perfect balance between creativity and control.
(Top photo: Matt Watson/Southampton FC via Getty Images)
