Gareth Southgate's Tactical Acumen Can Lead to Unlikely England Success
For the second time in as many months, England head into a World Cup qualifying fixture with a new manager at the helm. The Football Association is going to take its time over appointing a successor to Sam Allardyce, spending a portion of this season talking to experts and combing them for advice; in the meantime, Gareth Southgate will step up from under-21 duty to lead his nation.
He’s a rather divisive choice.
Aside from a Euro 96 penalty miss (yes, it still burns) and a truly terrible Pizza Hut commercial, his career has stayed firmly away from the limelight, and yet still he is not a truly popular selection.
Much of his work with the Three Lions’ youngsters has gone unnoticed or unsung, and the one time people did tune in to watch his work en masse—the 2015 Under-21 European Championships—his team bowed out in disappointing fashion.
It’s sad to say, but a number of pre-determined opinions of him were cemented in that month; the phrase "confirmation bias" has rarely been more fitting.
But scratch beneath the surface and you’ll find a manager who is ready to grapple with this challenge, and he has far more qualities than immediately meet the eye. That’s not to say he’s the dream appointment for the senior side, but Southgate does have several traits that could serve the nation well.
In the buildup to the Under-21 European Championships in 2015, Southgate won nine of 10 games and drew the other one. In fact, he has never lost a competitive qualifying game while in charge of the team.
The side’s performance at the finals was disappointing, finishing bottom of Group B, but they were lumped with eventual finalists Sweden and Portugal and an Italy side with a star in Domenico Berardi.
The displays were average, but there are some caveats Southgate can justifiably point to: an exhausted Harry Kane led the line, and injury robbed the side of two cornerstone players in qualifying—wide forward Saido Berahino, who top-scored in qualifying with 10 goals, and John Stones who became a near-£50 million player just a year later. Alex Pritchard also ducked out of the tournament early.
The template that summer was very much 4-3-3, but it lacked push from midfield and incisiveness up front. There were lots of exasperated Kane shots from distance, and only a Jesse Lingard thunderbolt provided any temporary glimmer of hope.
Still, Southgate had originally moulded a system that would suit his key players and had intended to reward those who qualified with their berths. Calls for Ross Barkley to be parachuted into the setup were ignored, as the manager justifiably felt he’d moulded a collective, and it wouldn’t be as simple as "play your best players."
In the summer of 2016, Southgate reaped the rewards for his strong tactical work. Again, he moulded a system and shape around the utensils he had—rather than force the pool into one he had pre-determined. England won the prestigious Toulon Tournament in May, beating hosts France in the final.
The squad Southgate used was older and more experienced than most in the finals, but that wasn’t the key reason for victory.
The former Middlesbrough manager switched from 4-3-3 to a 4-4-2 diamond, unleashing Ruben Loftus-Cheek as a roaming No. 10 at the tip of the midfield.
It is thought the decision to move to this system was predicated at least partially on excavating the Chelsea player’s best; he is thought of extremely highly both internationally and domestically, but funnily enough no one seems to be able to say what his best position is.
He also managed to extract serious production from Lewis Baker, who top-scored at the tournament with four goals. Again, no manager, no matter the club, has really managed to coax that out of Baker’s performances despite his obvious talent. Similarly, James Ward-Prowse has played better for England than he has under four managers at Southampton.
Most recently, Southgate supplanted his diamond on to the under-21 crop in the 2017 European Championship qualifiers. A talented Norwegian side—including Real Madrid's Martin Odegaard—were downed 6-1, with Marcus Rashford relishing a free striker role in the diamond and scoring a hat-trick. Once again, the talent was set loose by the system, not constrained.
Southgate’s ability to foster a friendly atmosphere has been praised from every direction, with former England assistant manager Ray Lewington implying his players looked forward to joining up to the squad, per the Express.
That, perhaps, is the biggest challenge facing Southgate as he transitions to the seniors: The arm-around-the-shoulder attitude is great for encouraging youngsters, but certain established internationals may not appreciate it. His record managing at senior level is hardly stupendous, either.
This is not to say the way forward with the seniors is to convert to a diamond formation or simply "get closer as a group." But it is to say Southgate has earned trust as a tactician, has done some exemplary, unsung work as a coach, and history suggests he may well be prepared to make big calls in order to unlock the best from his stars.
It seems as though this is Southgate’s job to lose, per the Mirror, and over the course of the 2016-17 season he could lock it down permanently with a good audition. No trouble will be expected from Malta on Saturday, so three days later, at the Stozice Stadium in Slovenia, all eyes will be on the Three Lions as they step on to the pitch.
A good performance might just be the start of the Southgate reign proper. Over the last three years, he’s shown enough to suggest he can grasp this chance.
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