Gareth Southgate was left with more questions than answers after England’s dismal performance in last week’s 1-1 draw with Denmark.
Now, with 24 hours to go until the final group stage match against Slovenia in Cologne, here’s how the manager should rearrange the pieces of his broken puzzle to make England a Euro contender again.
Who should play alongside Rice?
Well, it shouldn’t be Trent Alexander-Arnold, and Southgate looks set to make a change in midfield. It was not a good look for the England coach to talk about “experiments” in an important tournament, and a failed one at that.
There has been talk here among the press and former players that the solution for a deeper midfield role is at home in England. Not Jordan Henderson or Kalvin Phillips, but Bournemouth’s Lewis Cook, who had an outstanding season and was capped by Southgate in a friendly against Italy in March 2018.
Unfortunately, Cook is not here, so Conor Gallagher, Adam Wharton, Kobbie Mainoo and Jude Bellingham will be Declan Rice’s companions.
Gareth Southgate faces selection dilemma for England’s final Euro 2024 group stage tie
The Three Lions have been disappointing in their first two games of the tournament.
Southgate must piece together England’s starting XI ahead of Slovenia clash
Wharton is the best technician but he has no legs. Bringing him to a team that struggles for intensity would be a risk. Mainoo has more energy but, at 19, the Manchester United man is perhaps too inexperienced to be thrown into an environment where pressure takes its toll on the players, by their own admission.
Gallagher is the safest bet (he replaced Alexander-Arnold after 53 minutes against Denmark) and that will probably be Southgate’s choice. However, the bold move that solves another piece of the puzzle would be to move Bellingham into a deeper role.
What about Foden and Bellingham, and who plays on the left?
Phil Foden can’t continue on the left. It felt like he was sending out distress signals when he repeatedly abandoned his position and dribbled from the center or right against the Danes, as if to say: ‘Look what I can do here, boss!’ It is detrimental to the individual and the team to keep it there.
Southgate should move Foden to the number 10 role and tell Bellingham to play with more control at number 8. Certainly, the Real Madrid superstar looked in need of instruction and discipline on Thursday.
There are questions over where Phil Foden (left) and Jude Bellingham (right) should play.
Newcastle winger Anthony Gordon (right) could move to left back.
Bellingham treats the number 10 position as a free role, which is fine for Madrid when there is no forward in front and three midfielders behind. But England need him to show more responsibility and help Southgate solve the problem of a midfield that cannot retain the ball and is overwhelmed.
Bellingham may not like that, but no player should be complacent at the expense of a functioning team, which is not the case with England at the moment.
As for the left, Anthony Gordon is the only natural left winger on the squad. If Southgate brought him into the tournament at the expense of Jack Grealish, play against him!
What happens on the left side?
With every day Luke Shaw doesn’t train, the likelihood of Kieran Trippier staying there increases. Even if Shaw is ready to play in the knockout stage, it would be a big gamble to remove a player who has steadily improved his fitness to replace him with one who is several weeks behind.
We’re getting to the stage where Trippier may even need to be preserved for the knockout phase, so important is this square peg in a round hole. In reality, it is a part of the puzzle that cannot be properly fixed.
Starting left-back Luke Shaw has not been available for the Three Lions so far in Germany.
Should Southgate play with two up front?
Harry Kane does not appear to be fit, even if he says otherwise, but substitute forwards Ollie Watkins and Ivan Toney continue to play the role of “imitating” opposing forwards in training. That’s how Toney put it on Sunday. Southgate, it seems, has not thought about teaming up with Kane either.
We saw against Denmark that the introduction of Watkins gave England an option to get ahead. The problem is that Watkins lost the only opportunity he had. Kane, on the other hand, had his only chance early in the game. In the meantime, it appears Toney will be held in reserve until the prospect of a penalty shootout looms.
Kane is a piece Southgate hopes will fit with adjustments elsewhere, and that’s probably his best bet. Playing with two in attack would eliminate a midfielder from an area of the field that needs reinforcement, not reduction.
