The Trouble With Harry

One plausible explanation for why Rishi Sunak called a general election for the middle of a major international football tournament is that he wanted the country distracted by a more meaningful debate than whether the next government commited to fiscal discipline should wear a blue or a red rosette. Unfortunately, his own ability to create news stories out of nothing, from his cheerful enquiry at a Welsh brewery whether the workers were watching the football to his ill-advised decision to skip some of the D-Day commemorations in Normandy, has kept the political contest front and centre. However, after three underwhelming performances in the group stage, the England team has managed to muscle its way back into the nation's consciousness with the great debate over who should be dropped to ensure progress in the knockout rounds. This has not only given the Prime Minister something of a breather but has also cut short the inquest into Scotland's miserable exit, though that would always have received relatively cursory attention in the London-centric media anyway. 

There has been no shortage of criticism of individual players and equally no shortage of fanciful claims that a relatively untried Cole Palmer or Anthony Gordon could be this nation's saving grace if Gareth Southgate could just "unleash the potential". The manager has likewise had to put up with a tidal wave of chuntering suggesting his time is up and that he remains too loyal to certain players. What is striking is how many people have broken cover and baldly stated that he needs to drop the player to whom he has been most loyal, Harry Kane, who has arguably been England's worst performer to date, despite having scored a goal. This is not an opinion shared by all commentators, resulting in a clear schism developing in a manner all too familiar from previous tournaments. The case for the prosecution was nicely summed up by Goal.com stating that "it's just not happened for Kane in Germany", which is funny when you consider how he won the Bundesliga top scorer award while he led Bayern Munich to a trophyless season for the first time in aeons.

In the case for the defence, Jacob Steinberg in the Guardian considers variously dropping Jude Bellingham, Bukayo Saka, Phil Foden and even Kieran Trippier, for good measure, but steadfastly refuses to consider that Kane might be a worthier occupant of the bench despite admitting that his performance up front was "slow". Given that this lack of pace was noticeable throughout the rest of a team made up of younger, nippier players, you'd think he might wonder if Kane was slowing the collective down, not least because of his tendency to drop into midfield and get in the way of whoever the nominal 10 is meant to be. Bellingham wears the shirt but many commentators think Foden would do better centrally than on the left wing, and they could be right. But by the same token, the guy who often plays as a false 9 for Real Madrid might actually do better as the spearhead of the attack, but nobody is suggesting that. Unlike other squads, England actually have an impressive bench of forwards offering a variety of styles in Ollie Watkins, Ivan Toney and Jarrod Bowen, but the captain remains an automatic starter and nothing in Gareth Southgate's history suggests a willingness to take a chance deep into a tournament. This is a manager who is reluctant to make substitutions in-game.

As is normal when England aren't crushing the opposition, there has been a revival of the structural explanation for the team's under-performance among the more chin-stroking members of the commentariat, ever keen to turn the base metal of a football team into socio-political gold. This used to focus on a combination of infrastructural inadequacies and the poor quality of coach development, until the FA got serious about both, investing in St. George's Park and the new Wembley stadium and formalising its developmental "pathway". Now the lament concerns the lack of a national identity, which for many is the result of the money-bags Premier League with its tactical heterogeneity and reliance on foreign imports. Paradoxically, this idea manages to co-exist with a belief that England have too much of an ingrained identity, made up in equal parts of misplaced passion, disdain for technique and a bovine aversion to systematic thinking. The reality is that the England squad has many talented players, some of whom have played abroad and all of whom have worked under tactically astute managers (which includes even David Moyes).

The broader reality is that this is not a strikers' tournament, or at least not one that will be defined by someone filling their boots. The current leading goalscorer is Georgia's Georges Mikautadze on 3, which says more about that team's general performance than it does about the prowess of a player plying his trade at Metz, recently relegated to Ligue 2. Like Austria, the other impressive performer in the group stages, Georgia has shown that organisation allied with aggressive pressing and pace will succeed. The lesson for England should be that more aggressive pressing and pace, which the squad is perfectly capable of, will smooth over many of the organisational deficiencies evident in the first three matches. But as the salutary introduction of Conor Gallagher against Slovenia showed, this is only going to work if the personnel are geared to pace all over the pitch, and that means Kane remains the weak link. It also seems unlikely that Gareth Southgate, a former defender himself and thus someone whose instinct is to slow the game down, will suddenly go against type and "unleash the dogs of war", as some tabloid hack would no doubt put it.

England's issue is not unique, even if Kane is a high-profile example of the problem. Many teams have struggled with their lead attacker. Italy don't appear to have located one, to judge from the anonymous performances of Mateo Retegui, Federico Chiesa and Gianluca Scamacca. France's Kylian Mbappé is a support striker, not a number 9, and needs the movement of a selfless partner to create the necessary corrdidors for a slaloming approach to goal, which is why the goal-shy Marcus Thuram and the veteran Olivier Giroud get match minutes. The goalless (if unlucky) Romelu Lukaku is beginning to look like a museum exhibit, younger centre-backs pressing their noses up against his glass case, and is surely appearing at his final major tournament. Alavaro Morata is still Alvaro Morata. Even the hosts remain ambivalent, with German fans enagaged in a debate about whether goal machine Niclas Füllkrug (2 so far) would be a better starter up top than the more flexible and subtle Kai Havertz (1 to date). 

Portugal's Ronaldo hasn't managed to score yet and despite the slavish efforts of his team-mates doesn't look likely to, unless he gets lucky with a long-range free-kick. I suspect that young kid invading the pitch to get a selfie with him will remain the abiding memory of his contribution. As he has aged, Ronaldo has moved in from the wing to become an old school centre forward: looking to hold up play, good in the air and possessed of a thunderous shot. As with the German clamour for Füllkrug, there is an obvious nostalgia to this - the big number 9 as the focal point - but it isn't going to provide a winning formula at a tournament where the best performances to date have been by defenders and goalkeepers. Once you shut out the main man, Portugal look as bereft of ideas as England do. If innate caution means that Southgate will limit himself to one change in his preferred lineup, then he'd do better to swap Watkins for Kane rather than tinker with the wide players or pair Kobi Mainoo with Declan Rice. But if there is one thing that can be said of the England manager, it is that he is predictable, so a recall for Luke Shaw looks the more likely.