England defeat takeaway

Gonna make this quick. Probably will be all over the place...

I've struggled to watch England this entire tournament. Same with France and Portugal. Those are likely the three SQUADS with the most talent, but their managers insist on playing negative football. I've said that many times before, so it's not like this is a "hot take". Deschamps isn't going to coach France anymore. Zidane should be next in line. It's much like Germany in that Low was there for an extended period and should have been sacked a while ago. At the latest I'd say after the 2018 embarrassment. My point is this, national federations tend to act more conservatively than clubs in pretty much every way. I get that. You can't run to your billionaire owner or plunge deeper into debt to fix the holes in your squad. However, I can't excuse any of these three managers, and I firmly believe if they aren't all replaced by more "progressive" managers, each respective nation will fail next winter.

Speaking only on England now. Where to start...

It's easy to look at the penalties and say why would Southgate put two players who've not played in the game in the final 1-2 minutes, just to take pens. If it works, you look like a genius. If it fails, you look like an idiot. That's coaching at the highest level. My point with all this is is should not have reached that stage in the first place. I took issue with the lineup, personally, and have done the entire tournament. There's this strange narrative out there, and I have my theories as to why, that England don't have good players. That's nonsense. In terms of the squad, they had guys not even make the bench that would start for most countries. The Ben's, Chilwell and White, in particular. Coady and Mings being in the squad is a bit of a joke. For the Ben's not to make the bench, while these two are somehow there, is poor. There's the Trippier at LWB/LB thing, when as I just said you have Chilwell not even in the squad, as well as Shaw, who everyone hypes up for his United performances. Calvert-Lewin wasn't utilized at all, which I think is a joke, given the deep role Kane plays. Rashford isn't fully fit or whatever, so I get that, but Sancho not playing is hilarious. Same with Grealish. I'd even go as far as to say aside from the Croatia game, it literally makes no sense to play two DM's (Phillips and Rice) while Bellingham and Henderson chill on the bench.

There's the whole Foden thing as well. I have an explanation for why he looked terrible and Sterling looked good. Space. England scored in the 2nd minute and parked the bus. The stats reflect this; 65-35 possession, 2.13-0.57 xG, 6-2 SOG. In an alternate game, that goal isn't scored so early. How does that go, though? Brings me back to what I was saying about the team selection. The difference between Chelsea that won the CL and this England team is the midfield duo. Jorginho is miles ahead of both Phillips and Rice as a passer, and Kante is a machine. With Chelsea, Mount is able to influence the game because he's given that freedom to get into pockets of space, rather than running around all game trying to cover space the Kante usually gets to. Add to this Kane's playing style, which is to drop deep and create for his wide forwards. That leaves Sterling as the main threat up front, as well as the wing backs when they are allowed to do so. It's a numbers game. If you play not to lose rather than to win, you're going to face tight margins and are likely to lose at some point.

That last bit is where France and Portugal come back in. The 2016 Euros illustrate how similar these teams all are. France should've won that final. Portugal won ONE game in regular time the ENTIRE tournament. Sometimes you win, sometimes you don't.

That's pretty much what it is. If you play this negative style, sure you can beat good teams, but you also allow inferior teams to hang around. The Croatia 2018 loss and this one SHOULD provoke change, but it won't. The narrative will change to how England "overachieved", or some nonsense, or it'll go to how "heroic" they are for kneeling and being a cohesive unit. When in reality, England HAD the players to win; the manager just chose to play cowardly football and it bit him in the vital moment.

My take with the lineup, since I didn't quite explicitly say it, is you don't need three CB's, two wing backs, and two DM's that do the same thing. And then to add that an energetic #10/winger in Mount. I'd personally go 4-3-3 with that side, given the talent. One of Phillips/Rice DM, since they do that at club level. I'd actually go Phillips, personally. CB pair stays the same, as do the fullbacks in Shaw/Walker. Grealish/Mount plus Hendo/Jude, depending on the opposition. Any of Sterling, Sancho, Rashford, Grealish, Foden, Saka at winger, with Kane followed by DCL up front. This is without accounting for Trent, Maddison, Greenwood, AWB, Abraham, Barnes, JWP, and others. I always thought France was the one team that would be worthy winners against England, considering the talent. Portugal would join Italy and probably Spain and Germany in that next tier, with Netherlands Belgium Denmark after that. Netherlands had De Boer, even worse than the coaches I discussed earlier, and Belgium have no "top tier" defenders at this point, with Castagne closest but injured in the first game. Spain have trouble scoring and defending. Germany also have the coach issue, plus no real #9. Italy also have depth issues, which nobody talks about. Immobile was horrid this tournament, Belotti wasn't much better when he came on. Berardi looked like how he does when Sassuolo play average to crap Serie A sides. Insigne only tried his 1 in 25 curler and was pretty anonymous otherwise. Bonucci and Chiellini are slow and I'm shocked nobody was able to capitalize. Emerson for Spinazzola was a massive downgrade, and even Spina is a liability at defending. I kinda just highlighted the issues of every other "contender", without intending to do so.

But yeah. Again, takeaway is this. You can either realize something needs to change or the same fate will befall England next year, or you can act like this is an amazing achievement. This was 100% a winnable trophy, especially with France out, and a better coach gets more out of this talented squad.