England 1(5)-1(3) Switzerland: Southgate Takes England to Third Semi-final!

The great Sir Alex Ferguson once said “attack wins you games, defence wins you titles”. Could this quote be relevant to England in this Euros tournament? Is it coming home? Am I getting ahead of myself? Let’s dive into what we learned from the Switzerland game and whether we can answer those questions just yet, or see if we’re getting a bit ahead of ourselves.

Hats off to Gareth

Before many readers come after me, I am not suggesting that Gareth is perfect, far from it in fact! But, with the stick we have all been giving him, it is important to appreciate where he gets it right, and he got many things right in this game. We all urged Southgate to play Saka at left wing back, and the lineup leaks looked like that would be the case. But we were all proved wrong, as Southgate opted to keep him on the right, but instead at right wing back, as we all watched Saka put in a player of the match performance.

Playing Saka at right wing back instead of the right wing meant that Saka was able to receive the ball slightly deeper than previous games, and enabled him to run at the defenders and beat his man, which is where Saka thrives. Not only did he score the equalising goal, he created the most chances in the match (2), completed the most dribbles (4), was the most fouled player (2), and even won the most duels (10). He also showed great character to step up and take a penalty in the shootout for the Three Lions. A huge and brave performance from Saka, and the correct call from Southgate.

Penalties the key to success?

Historically penalties have not been fun for England, that’s no secret. For Gareth however, penalties have become a bit of a specialty for him. Southgate has taken charge of England for 4 penalty shootouts, winning 3 of them (let’s not talk about the loss). Something felt different in this penalty shootout however. We had 5 confident, regular penalty takers who never looked phased. It’s no secret that penalties can win you a tournament, and, as uncomfortable as it may be for us fans, this could be Gareth’s tactic for getting us to the end of the tournament. I look back to Portugal in the 2016 euros who won every knockout game on penalties apart from the final, which still went to extra time. So the moral of the story here is, if you found that penalty shootout uncomfortable then strap-in, because we could be in for more of the same!

More disappointment from Kane!

The skipper, Harry Kane, has had a rather underwhelming performance so far in the tournament, which unfortunately continued against Switzerland. Harry Kane managed just 2 shots against the Swiss (neither on target). This mainly comes from him failing to get into the right positions. If I had a pound for every time Saka ran to the byline & cut the ball back into the box to no-one, I would be rich! Harry Kane often did not find himself in the box apart from corners, managing a dreadful 5 touches in the opposition box in 109 minutes of football. He also had the least touches of any player on the pitch to play 90+ minutes (27).

So why was Harry Kane finding himself unable to get in these positions. Looking at Harry Kane’s heat map below, he is operating all over the pitch, but mainly in the middle third of the pitch:

The aim here is for Kane to drop deep and play decisive passes into our number 10s or our wide men. Harry Kane’s passing has been anything but decisive, managing 2 passes into the final third. Look, I love Kane just as much as we all do, he’s a world class striker and our captain, but he’s not getting the best out of himself, and it’s concerning to say the least!

How are we winning?

It was another defensive display for periods of the game for England, but was it a good defensive display? To answer simply, kind of. Looking at the stats, not a lot changed from the defensive stats against Slovakia. There were a lot less aerial duels in the Switzerland game, but ground duels were more or less the same. Same story with other defensive stats such as blocks and interceptions.

Attacking wise, we again struggled to get shots on target and players in the box. We have been very underwhelming attacking throughout the tournament, averaging 18.88 shot creating actions per 90, which ranks as the 16th best in the whole tournament. So how are we still pushing on? It sounds cliche, but I believe it’s unity. These England players clearly back the manager and will run through a brick wall for him. The celebrations after the game shows how much these lads care about winning, and I think we are running on pure willpower and drive, something which not a lot of other teams in this tournament have, and this will only grow into the semi final.

So what’s next?

So what happens against the Netherlands? If we’re following the pattern of what Southgate has been doing so far, we can expect minimal changes. We can expect that Marc Guéhi will return to the starting XI in place of Ezri Konsa, who will be unlucky to come out after a solid performance on Sunday. Apart from that, it will most likely be the tactics and setup that worked for us against Switzerland. Luke Shaw will likely not start as he won’t be deemed fit enough, but we can expect him to come off the bench again if we find ourselves a goal down, same goes for Eze, Palmer and Toney. Gareth will trust the XI that has gotten us this far, so we need to have faith that that is the right call.