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Just over an hour before kickoff at Telia Parken Stadium, Gareth Southgate paced gently within the center circle of an otherwise empty field. It’s hard to know which was heavier: the England manager at the time or the midfield performance that followed in the 0-0 draw in Copenhagen.
Southgate often likes to enjoy his surroundings when England play away from home, but a brief period of splendid isolation would certainly have been welcome after a few difficult days in which he had to deal with the aftermath of Phil Foden and Mason Greenwood. breach of quarantine. The 50-year-old was hopeful that his team’s performance tonight would re-focus on football and he did, but not in the way he would like.
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England’s quest for the right balance in midfield continues and the evidence from the past four days is that Southgate is no closer to solving a perennial problem that has undermined tournament campaigns for years. To be frank, they still don’t have a player capable of constantly injecting creativity and rhythm from central midfield.
Croatian Luka Modric sentenced England to death for a thousand passes at the 2018 World Cup, Frenkie de Jong did a similar thing for the Netherlands in the semi-finals of the Nations League last summer. It’s not Southgate’s fault that the English system hasn’t yet produced a midfield metronome in that mold, but it’s his job to come up with workarounds and the hope is that he had already made more progress in that endeavor than this double title suggests.
Southgate’s decision to play three defenses for the first time in almost exactly two years as part of a 3-4-3 formation failed to lift England from their creative dream. England produced four shots on goal in a lackluster performance against Iceland last Saturday, with Declan Rice, Foden and James Ward-Prowse flattering to deceive.
A central midfield pairing here of Rice and rookie Kalvin Phillips was even less inspiring. Phillips was orderly enough, but with England insufficiently astute in possession to create overload opportunities on both flanks, the three forwards of Harry Kane, Jadon Sancho and Raheem Sterling became too isolated, particularly in the first half.
Sancho’s was replaced at the hour mark by Mason Mount, ending a disappointing international break for a player who has rarely been out of the headlines this summer. The 20-year-old is clearly an enormously promising talent and the timing of these Nations League matches does not lend itself to optimal performance, but it was nevertheless intriguing that he failed to hit two conservative opponents similar to the ones he did. Manchester United has had. collapse under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
Sancho could still be a world champion and will almost certainly improve, but United’s reluctance to meet Borussia Dortmund’s £ 100 million asking price found justification here. The winger himself could legitimately argue that the lack of supply made his task even more difficult, so we return to the midfield issue. Southgate attempted to rectify the problem by playing Mount in a central midfield two, something Southgate claimed the 21-year-old had “not done in first team football,” before finally introducing Jack Grealish with 14 minutes to go.
England struggled to push with consistency and continued to look uncomfortable in this form throughout. There is still time to work on the formations, of course, and Southgate would certainly point to the success England had in Russia when deployed in a 3-5-2 form. However, he adhered to the belief after that tournament that a back three was simply a means to an end, born out of a desire to protect a fragile team that is learning to express itself.
A more expansive 4-3-3 form has seen England thrill and enthrall ever since and Southgate was far too cautious here if anything. Denmark are a competent side with Christian Eriksen capable of causing any lateral problems, but three centrals and two defensive central midfielders felt like a stretch under the circumstances.
England switched to 4-3-3 after the last World Cup because Southgate felt their defenders didn’t need as much protection and wanted to pursue a more forward approach. They need to get back to that.
Southgate countered the underperforming allegations by listing the extraordinary circumstances in which these games were played given the requirements of COVID-19, poor discipline from Foden and Greenwood and the Harry Maguire saga in Greece when the team was announced.
“I was determined that we would not leave here without something,” he said. “We weren’t going to go out here and be lazy and frivolous and bow down to everything else that’s been going on. We were a strong team of men, we needed it. To get through both games like the players have.” at this stage of the season … we shouldn’t have really played, frankly. The situation with the clubs makes it not ideal for any of the players but the match went ahead and we really have to commend the effort and effort of the players.
“It’s been chaos, frankly, for three weeks and two clean sheets, solid performances and a strong focus on the game is a huge credit to the players that are here.”
It is reasonable to expect England to improve from here, as the team for next summer’s finals continues to emerge. Three from Sterling, Kane, Sancho and Marcus Rashford make up England’s best eleven. Conor Coady was solid as a central defender on his debut and both he and Eric Dier hope to challenge Joe Gomez as Harry Maguire’s preferred partner. But the composition of the midfield is anyone’s guess at the moment.
No one really moved forward on his case this month, leaving the missing group of Harry Winks, Ross Barkley, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and James Maddison, all battling Rice, Phillips and Mount to form an effective midfield with Jordan Henderson.
Denmark had the best of second-half chances, Eriksen ablaze at the end, before Kane nearly beat him in injury time, rounding out Kasper Schmeichel only for Mathias Jorgensen to clear the ball off the line. It was England’s second shot on goal all night.
Southgate, the man always in the middle, has a lot to ponder.
