Energising England isn’t as simple as dropping Liverpool’s Alexander-Arnold or Man City’s Foden

Lest we forget, amid all the huffing and tutting over England’s stilted second-half showing against Serbia, Gareth Southgate’s side performed admirably for the first half-hour of the match, demonstrating all of the fizz and fluidity that the fans had been begging for. The question ahead of the game against Denmark seems quite simple, then – how can England keep that attacking spark alight for 90 minutes?

The massed ranks of British pundits seem to have come to the conclusion that it’s largely about personnel and individual performances. Liverpool’s Trent Alexander-Arnold’s position in midfield, in particular, has come into question. Vaunted tactical minds such as Wayne Rooney and Frank Lampard have opined that Kobbie Mainoo should be starting alongside Declan Rice, and who are we to argue?

In fairness to both, I was among the columnists to call out Alexander-Arnold’s credentials as a midfielder ahead of the Serbia match, and there are many points in my article calling for the experiment to be abandoned that I still agree with – for all his many sterling qualities, his inexperience in the position shows and he offers far less drive and dynamism as a midfielder than he does as a wing-back. But then again, Southgate is a lot smarter than people give him credit for, and the way Alexander-Arnold was utilised in the first half against Serbia proved that.

Alexander-Arnold may have been down on the teamsheet as a central midfielder, but in reality his positioning was far more flexible than that. England started the match firmly on the front foot and with the Liverpool man operating far less in a central area than he did out wide right – the plan was that either Jude Bellingham or Phil Foden (another victim of dropping calls, and we’ll get to that) would drop into central midfield alongside Rice, allowing Alexander-Arnold to head out to the right flank and set up a two-on-one match-up with Bukayo Saka against Serbian left-back Strahinja Pavlović.

The result of that genuinely cunning plan was that poor Pavlović took a pasting as Saka was afforded numerous opportunities to make runs in behind, with the defender pulled between pressing Alexander-Arnold and tracking back to mark the Arsenal man. The scheme was central to England’s excellent play in the first half-hour and created the goal, with Saka getting in behind his man to cross, via a slightly fortuitous deflection, into the path of Bellingham’s typically powerful late run.

So what went wrong in the second half, as England ceded possession, territory and the right to generate pressure for 45 rather turgid minutes? Instead of playing with all that off-ball movement and flair, instead of setting up to keep the ball and drag Serbians out of position, they reverted to the way they always seem to play when 1-0 ahead – they got two banks deep behind the ball, played a rigid 4-5-1 (often even 4-6-0 with Harry Kane constantly getting sucked in to midfield) and let Serbia do everything.

Southgate would probably counter any criticism of that set-up by observing that not only did England win their opening game of a European Championship for just the second time, but that they did so without allowing Serbia to create a serious chance. Jordan Pickford was, after all, only called into action once, to tip a somewhat speculative Dušan Vlahović effort over the bar. The pressure never amounted to a tangible threat on goal.

The issue, of course, is that there are many better sides than Serbia in this tournament and given the same invitation to attack and have all forward momentum for long periods, they are more likely to take advantage, much as Italy did in the final of Euro 2020. Just look at Pavlović, transformed from first-half whipping boy into dynamic attacking threat down the left because Alexander-Arnold was redeployed into midfield, the overlap was broken up and he was freed up to play his natural game. In the end, he couldn’t make much happen – but would the same be true if he was slinging crosses into Kai Havertz or Kylian Mbappé? Probably not.

This has always been Southgate’s greatest weakness as a manager – his excessive conservatism with a slender lead, which not only generates too many chances for opposing sides to find equalisers but also regularly puts England in a defensive rut that they struggle to get out of. For whatever reason, his teams all too often fail to transition back into controlling and attacking mode when their leads have been broken up.

His substitutions are often criticised, too, but they are more a victim of that malaise than a cause – and against Serbia, his decisions to introduce Conor Gallagher and Jarrod Bowen made a marked difference, injecting a bit of extra energy and relieving some of the pressure that was building up.

Gallagher was, of course, brought on for Alexander-Arnold and that change rather proved the thesis that he isn’t the right man for the job if you want a ‘proper’ midfielder. England have three excellent options for that role between Gallagher, Mainoo and Adam Wharton, and all would be better at playing the box-to-box, tackle-and-pass role than the player who got the nod on Sunday – but few could offer as much in a more flexible formation which played to Alexander-Arnold’s strengths. This isn’t a question of whether Alexander-Arnold is better than the alternatives on paper, it’s a question of how England set up in the first place and which player’s attributes they are best off building around.

Speaking of how Southgate uses players being more important than which players they use, Manchester City midfielder Foden has come in for plenty of stick as well after failing to offer much penetration against Serbia – but didn’t he really do just what was apparently asked of him?

In dropping down into midfield time and again (both when England were good and when they were bad later on) and doing a lot of hard yards, he created space for Bellingham to surge forward and for Alexander-Arnold to get wide. Without him dropping back, that space isn’t there. There’s plenty of room to argue that England would be better off working out a system that puts Foden front and centre of the attack, but in playing a support role he did what was demanded of him, if nothing more.

Him dropping deeper and being a prop for the system rather than a focal point also makes sense in the context of Kieran Trippier at left-back – having a strictly right-footed player in that role means that effective overlapping in attack is almost impossible, and as such the entire set-up was predicated on attacking down the right side instead, with Trippier advancing ahead of Foden as a bulwark in possession rather than as a threat. The two were a platform from which to keep the ball and suck Serbians in before getting the ball wide to find the real point of attack through Saka.

Again, that plan worked, at least until the second half when both Trippier and Foden were rooted into a deep-set defensive system. The sight of Foden hacking the ball clear from defence with nobody up front has been used as a stick with which to beat him, but in truth was just a man doing a thankless task – he stuck to his position, he made tackles, he prevented Serbia from finding a way through. It may not be the most exciting way you can use such a lavishly gifted player, but don’t blame him for doing what the manager told him to.

Southgate may well change who plays in midfield when England play Denmark on Thursday evening and may well have a new plan of attack which gives Foden more of a chance to shine. But to criticise Alexander-Arnold or Foden’s performance on Sunday is to miss the real target – the mistakes made on a systemic and tactical level, which dragged the team down as a whole and didn’t play to the strengths of either player. The first half proved that both have a role to play in a hugely successful and to a certain extent even swashbuckling performance. It’s just a matter of staying above third gear once England get their noses in front.