England’s goalless draw with Ghana reminded me of many games in my coaching career, when you’re facing a team who are extremely compact, positioned very low, and very well drilled. To break them down you need to play with more variety, better movement and – above all – urgency, and it took England too long to play with urgency.
They can expect the same stubborn defending from Panama on Saturday. Therefore, in the buildup to their final group match, they will have been working on the key details needed to score against a low block.
Paris Saint-Germain’s equaliser against Arsenal in this year’s men’s Champions League final is a good example. Arsenal were camped in their own half after the break and PSG patiently strangled them.
You have to create more urgency without rushing. PSG won their penalty in that final not by lumping a ball into the box, but by creating a give-and-go around the penalty area.
Their patient, methodological approach might be difficult for some to wrap their heads around. Whipping in crosses against a back four that has a wall of five players in front, with fewer than six or seven yards between them, is damn hard. As a coach, you want players to find ways to create chaos. You have to be patient and urgent, simultaneously.
You want everyone playing like it’s the 90th minute much earlier and it took England too long to do that on Wednesday. You could see how frustrated Thomas Tuchel was becoming with the lack of movements; England were quite static.
If this type of situation occurs in a knockout game, I suspect we would see full-backs used as wingers to commit more numbers forward, bringing on a second striker, switching to a 3-5-2 and trying to get two attacking No 10s on the pitch. There are different ways to do it. But we have to give credit to Ghana for the way they played.
Ghana matched England in one-on-ones, they were aggressive in their duels, but they also didn’t respond to the press-baiting that England usually deploy under Tuchel. Crucially, Ghana’s wide players didn’t jump up to the ball, making it much harder for the spare player to find space in the pockets. Carlos Queiroz, an excellent coach, used these tactics many times against the top teams for Manchester United.
When facing this tactical situation, England setting up with a right-footer as left-back, in Djed Spence, was far from ideal. England wanted to switch the play to Noni Madueke when he was spare on the other side, but their pivot, Elliot Anderson, was always marked. So they couldn’t switch the play through Anderson and that made their switches even slower, because they would usually have to go back through their centre-backs and around.
England didn’t have enough runners into the half-spaces, enough opposite movements to try to stretch Ghana or someone coming short to feet. So the play became predictable.
I’d have started Nico O’Reilly; you want to see different types of crosses from deeper spaces with runs from deep, and that’s what he gives you, which we saw with his late headed chance. England also desperately needed Marcus Rashford brought on sooner. It was a game that needed someone really brave in the one-on-ones to take players on.
These are the games where you require a moment of magic, moments we’ve seen from Kylian Mbappé and Lionel Messi in this tournament. England didn’t find one. We were left wanting more from the performance, but we also must not forget that England are in a strong position in their group.
It is important not to be too reactive. Unfortunately, as a nation, we win one game and suddenly “we’re dead certs to win the World Cup” and we draw a game and we’re “dead certs to fail”.
We need to control our emotion a little bit and accept that facing Ghana was, without question, the toughest game in the group. Ghana thoroughly deserved the point.
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Tuchel will be thinking “we’ve got four points in the bag”. That’s just how coaches’ minds work. Don’t forget, Spain and Portugal drew their opening games. It happens. It’s vitally important to be calm.
Objective No 1 is get out of the group. Objective No 2 is win it. Are England on track for that? Absolutely. The players, the manager, they’ve been in this situation before. Be calm.
After two games, we have learned something about the team when they are against a side going toe-to-toe with them, Croatia, and we’ve learned that against low blocks, they are going to have to refine the key details. I’d rather learn these things now than in the knockout phase.
Against Panama, England have the perfect chance to improve on what they’ve just experienced. Sometimes the best “next game” to play is one that’s similar to your last.
The good news is, England were calm at the end of the game, with their body language, their mannerisms and words. There’s experience in the group and it was noticeable. I could feel that.
The senior players, who have played in enough major tournaments now to know how it goes, will be a big help. They will have gone back to camp and kept everyone calm.
Without experience, it is really easy to get caught up in the rollercoaster of emotion: “we’re the best team in the world” one day and then “we’re terrible”. Their job is not to get wrapped up in what the country feels.
Fans are entitled to their opinions. But playing in major tournaments is a marathon. Be calm. Now, can we find another level in our performance? I expect they will be ready.