How Gareth Southgate can fix England NOW: England 1-0 Serbia tactical analysis

England's 2024 Euro campaign is off and underway with a 1-0 win against Serbia, and of course, alongside this returns the whirlwind of contention, of criticism and hope. And as always, we're going to try and make sense and calm and clarity in the chaos. And in today's video, I'm going to analyse what we learned from England's 1-0 win against Serbia, analysing England's new style of build-up, Southgate's poor platforming of individuals, and a really passive England out of possession, which is potentially the most worrying part of all. So with all this to come, let's get straight on into it, starting with England's spiralling new form of build-up. In the first 25 minutes, to use one word to describe me watching the football, the positional rotations we saw had me surprised. It was like Southgate had looked at Julian Nagelsmann's Germany on the opening night in their 3-1-6 or 3-1-5-1 shape, and how Havertz had helped pin the Scottish back line, and Gundewund's dis-marking movements, giving both him, Musiala and Havertz time and space between the lines in sort of free rolls. And Southgate looking at this, has entrusted the free rolls in this England team, or against Serbia at least, to Phil Foden, Jude Bellingham and Trent Alexander-Arnold. Now, as I'm going to analyse in detail, this is not all sunflowers and roses. But for now, let's focus on the profiling that gave Jude Bellingham and Phil Foden in particular the freedom to stay high at the top of England's box midfield in their 3-2-5 or 3-2-2-3, however you like to call it, with Rice and Trent mostly at the base. Or, Jude and Phil Foden would drift deeper themselves, and the only fixed player in this box midfield was Declan Rice, but even he at times would shift from left to right in the pivot, depending on whether Jude Bellingham dropped from the left or right. If Trent was sitting next to him, or higher between the lines. In that early bout of England control, this box shape in midfield was constantly spiralling and revolving, with so many rotations within it, and at times the structure actually became a bit more freeform, making a 3-1 build-up axis, or sometimes even a 3-3 build-up shape, with lots of additional and auxiliary controllers deep. And as I'm going to explain, giving Bellingham this free roll does completely maximise him, and is optimal within the team's environment. And, in isolation, there is nothing wrong with giving Foden and Trent Alexander-Arnold free rolls, but, but, but, when you start to look at the types of movements this encouraged in Trent by Southgate, and what you are then taking away from the team's balance when suddenly Foden is tasked with drifting into the second line of possession more, you really start, or at least myself, I really started to query not just the types of free rolls that Southgate is platforming individuals with, but how many players are actually being put in their best zones consistently, and this is the key. But before we move on to that section, let's talk about what was great in the platforming of Jude Bellingham, because this Southgate did get right. It's inevitable, going on further into his career, that Jude Bellingham is going to move deeper in the pitch. It always has been inevitable. His zone of influence, as I like to call it, extends from getting touches and dominating the deep build-up, combining and then carrying in the tighter spaces between the lines, and then crashing the opposition's box. It's literally what Jude does for the first goal. Let Bellingham do it all and be that free or hybrid number eight. Let him be your touch-heavy double pivot player next to rice, and then add pausa and organisation to our final third play. However, if Bellingham should be this dynamically moving piece in the team that takes precedence, you cannot add, in my opinion, Phil Foden too, when you start to consider who is around him and the knock-on effects of giving him a free role, and choosing to give Foden a free role over other players and giving them more licence. I do feel really sorry for Phil Foden at international level, but if you find yourself having to make Harry Kane or Bakayo Saka, or both as it was against Serbia, the two who are pinning the Serbian back line to give the space in between the lines for the Bellinghams, the Fodens and the Trent Alexander-Arnolds, if you're keeping Harry Kane out from dropping between the lines and then finding runners in behind, and Saka being that between the lines referent point on the right-hand side, your priorities, in my opinion, are totally wrong. Because all of Saka, Kane and Jude Bellingham are these massive personalities in this England squad, and are also all humble enough characters and adaptable enough players to change the role in the way that we saw with Saka and Kane last night, and I'm going to get on to how we should also change Trent Alexander-Arnold's role momentarily. But this just shows for me, and this is what the Foden debate, if you want to call it that, boils down to, and it's what international football is about. The best players are of course able to dominate when they're put in their best roles, but are also able to adapt according to the usage and priorities of the coach and other players. These guys add value across a wide range of areas, even if that isn't in their preferred roles, and unfortunately, whether it's Bellingham, Kane or Saka, when Phil Foden is given a degree of freedom, it is impossible to recreate the specialised role, and specialised free role, that Pep has wonderfully constructed for him at Manchester City. That sort of final third receptor who accelerates play and carries and fires shots in the tight spaces. If Southgate saw Nagelsmann's Germany on the opening night, his priorities for who he gave that free role to were wrong, and we became, I think, much less dynamic in attack as a result. I'm not going to go on for this any longer, because obviously if you add Luke Shaw, who hopefully we're going to have fully fit at some point in the tournament, he gives this left-hand side that really isn't very well balanced at all at the and or, if you start to add Anthony Gordon to this, you start to balance out the entire front line in the attack with a natural first-choice runner in behind. But I think the most interesting and probably underwhelming bit of player usage yesterday against Serbia was Trent Alexander-Arnold. I want to see Trent play, ultimately, but I've never ever been a fan, if you've watched the channel for a while now, of him being used as a true midfielder. His best role, Trent's best role, is one that starts as a right-back and then moves into that free, sort of, quarterback role that we've seen him used as at Liverpool before his injury this season. So, what is the difference, because I know this question is coming, and rightly so, between beginning initially as a right-back and then being given and moving into this free role that I envision for Trent Alexander-Arnold against Trent's usage by Southgate last night? Well, last night Trent was forced to receive the ball more with his back to goal in our deep 4-2-4 build-up shape, which places a real emphasis on his spatial awareness and the ability to turn out under pressure, none of which has made Trent arguably the best creative force from right-back we've ever seen. If Trent, on the other hand, begins as a right-back, it means if he moves into the pivot alongside Rice, forming the exact same box shape we saw here last night, or if he stays wider a bit, he can exclusively play facing goal. And it doesn't stop there. Instead of being more of a true-eight, like he was last night, occupying between the lines areas often, Trent can drop into the right of a back three or drop in between the centre halves and be that Tony Kruiser's deep-lying playmaker and quarterback figure that maximises Alexander-Arnold's zone of influence, which boils down to his passing and creative range from deep and in the final third. He basically needs to, at the very least, start deeper and wider, because then he can create whilst facing play over a large range of zones. He can also make those intense, unexpected runs that are a quarterback-style-esque run, those overlaps from deep too. And this role is already part of a really nice relationship on the right-hand side between Alexander-Arnold and Pikaio Saka, and it takes this to the next level. And for the team, in terms of balance, but also for that creative incision, arguably the greatest point of hindrance for Southgate across his whole England tenure, that is now solved. And, in Trent at right-back, you just mean you have to balance out the back line in other areas, with a proper channel defender tucking in from the left-hand side in Joe Gomez. Obviously, I'm not trying to shy away from it, this pushes Kyle Walker out of the team, something Southgate will never do, let's get that right before we sort of contextualise the rest of the discussion, but for me, Kyle Walker has moved out of obvious necessity to be starting for this team anyway, due to the upside that you get from Trent on the ball, and also as Walker as a defender not being quite what he was, you can manage the spaces as well behind Trent, through the best out-of-possession pivot in Declan Rice around, and then bulletproofing, as I've alluded to, the rest defence in the back three. I think Kyle Walker has been absolutely invaluable in the past, but when you have Trent Alexander-Arnold not being maximised, the necessity of what is Kyle Walker defending the wide channels is just overstated in my humble opinion, but the thing is, you can probably make all of this work with, or just about, with a returning Luke Shaw and tweaking of Trent's role, but what is a no-no is the level of passivity off the ball that we saw throughout the entire game. Obviously, England had a lot of the ball, after 25-30 minutes they had 70% of the ball, and this dropped to around the 30-minute mark. This was also because Serbia had an equally passive 5-3-2 off the ball in this period, but as soon as they went man-to-man in their high press and induced more turnovers from England, without the best balance really to this England attack from a transitional point of view, and I'm talking about here not having Kane or Alexander-Arnold as those release valves to pass in behind to only one runner, which was Bakayo Saka, which is not the optimal use of Bakayo Saka. Again, we're talking about Kane and Saka pinning the Serbia back line when you want them in and around between the lines and balancing out the attack with someone like an Anthony Gordon or an overlapping threat in a Luke Shaw, but like I said, once more turnovers were induced by Serbia in their higher press and they got more of the ball, England's passive 4-5-1 or 4-4-2 mid-block I think really exposed their deficiencies off the ball, because our passivity in the press, even though our mid-block was pretty compact I thought, our passivity in the press goes totally counter to the run-up in this tournament, where Southgate has really emphasised an out-of-possession structure that has been defined by this intensity and man-to-man pressing schemes off the ball, but with the amount we sat off against Serbia, with much better quality opposition, we're not just going to relinquish control of the game, but we're going to be exposed to much more advanced patterns of chance creation other than just working an overload out wide to put the ball into the box, and with the state of how we looked in transition against Serbia, this isn't the best combination, I don't need to tell you that, because in summary, this is an England team with the amount of rotations that we saw in the opening 25 minutes and the amount of quality that they have on the pitch and on the bench that is so close to making this Euros really one to remember, but in Southgate's current iteration of the team, things definitely do need to change, the team's balance and getting players into their best zones simply must be prioritised, alongside a more intensive high press, especially with the return of the likes of Jude in the 10 and Saka out wide, the option to use players such as Gallagher in the pivot next to Rice or Gomez at left back, Southgate may actually be, when we look at it, he's the closest I think that he ever has been to clicking with this England side and really cracking it, and he just needs to continue that emphasis that he's increasingly having now on individuals but just not in the wrong areas on the ball, like last night against Serbia, and then off the ball now, if he can use these principles in tandem with the really positive box defending performance against Serbia, which gave me and it will give the back line a heck of a lot of confidence with a more aggressive out of possession England in certain circumstances, then that's a much better England going forward into this tournament, but as always I'll be in the comments down below, let me know what you think, what would you change about this England side if anything, what do you think the problems and the positives are coming out from the breakdown out of Serbia and how do you think we move forward in this tournament, but I really hope you've enjoyed the video, I only ask you to like, comment, subscribe right at the end because hopefully that means you found the video enjoyable or informative in whichever shape or form you derive that from, but I've been Harvey Gratian, I'm really thankful for you joining me, I'll catch you in the next one, see you later.