Imagine this England team under Thomas Tuchel?
Lacklustre with no desire, and Gareth Southgate is tactically out of his depth
I feel bad for constantly bashing Gareth Southgate, because he is actually a very good man who is very humble and kind-hearted.
But sorry Gareth, as a tactical manager, you are WAY out of your depth.
In 2018, Southgate’s England got the the semi finals of the World Cup and the country started to believe. The country came together and it was pure joy for three weeks of the summer, and what an experience it was. I am fully grateful to Southgate for leading that.
However, nobody can deny we got very lucky to get as far as we did, and to be honest, we should have beaten Croatia and got to the final, and would have under a more tactically adequate manager.
As a one to one man-manager, Southgate is your guy. Managing youth players, Southgate proved he was a good at that. But when you want to advance and give a team that extra boost on the pitch in terms of tactics, and even being a motivational leader, Southgate is not your guy.
Against Scotland, England’s closes rivals, playing them for only the second time in a major tournament in their history, the players turned up on the pitch like they were playing a training match.
Scotland’s players, totally opposite, totally up for it. Why weren’t England’s players showing that same spirit and desire? It’s the very basics you need to win a football match, the desire to do so.
It is the managers job to get his players up for a match especially on the international stage, and I just don’t think Southgate has those leadership qualities to motivate a group on he whole.
If he had that, the tactics wouldn’t matter quite as much. In international football you do not get a lot of time to implement tactics and style of play anyway, but Southgate has never had an identity apart from being overly cautious and defensive.
But even in International football, you must attempt to set yourself up with some form of identity. The players were clueless, they had no idea how to build play up and form attacks. There were no patterns of play and they were far too slow on the ball and didn’t want to take any risks.
For me, it was as simple as the starting line up once again. Playing two defensive minded centre midfielders against Scotland was just absurd.
We lacked a creative spark in the middle and someone to pull the strings and be the middle man between defence and attack.
Kalvin Phillips and Declan Rice are both very solid defensive minded midfielders, but they don’t bring that flair and creativeness that England lacked.
Against a team like Scotland, when on paper we clearly have more quality (bar Billy Gilmour who was awesome by the way), we should be lining up with a more attacking focused team.
Start with a 4-3-3, use one holding midfielder, then play Mason Mount and either Jack Grealish or Phil Foden in a central area using two number 8s.
This gives you creativity and direct intent through the middle of the park, it also gives more room for your full backs to become attackers and add numbers to the forward line.
We do not need two holding midfielders against Scotland.
The like for like sub as well bringing Foden off for Grealish was terrible. Things were lacklustre, things were stale, change it up Gareth, try something different! Foden wasn’t great, but nobody was. It was a chance their to try some in-game management and switch formations. But Gareth would never…
I always say this, but just imagine this England team under a tactically adequate coach, someone like Thomas Tuchel?
But they ain’t having him!
The worst thing is, I saw a report saying Southgate keeps his England job regardless of what happens in the Euros. What the hell is that all about!?
England will definitely go on and win the Euros now we all know this right? Now we’ve all been so critical of Southgate!
Simon Phillips