NEW YORK – The kindest interpretation is that some of the chaos is by design. The late goals, the introduction of the “finishers”, the fact that England remain in the World Cup only by virtue of Harry Kane’s greatest performance at a major tournament.
Beyond that, the prognosis has been bleak. Long before Thomas Tuchel, Gareth Southgate often trod the line between being able to identify their problems and address them – but not all of them can be traced back to Tuchel and not all of them can be easily fixed.
The right
Noni Madueke’s end product will continue to be scrutinised. The bigger problem is that he is largely doing what he is supposed to be doing in this system – rolling it back to Djed Spence. England are both predicable and fragile down the right, but it is not going to be rectified because 1. Tuchel has left Trent Alexander-Arnold at home, 2. In Reece James and Tino Livramento he picked two right-backs who were predictably going to get injured and 3. Bukayo Saka can come on but he is not fully fit either.
It is one thing to revel in the power of the substitutes but they have largely masked where England have got it wrong in the first place.
The Pickford problem
The good news, on paper: Mexico have two main attacking threats – one, a forward from the Saudi Pro League and the other, a Championship striker. Julian Quinones is their top scorer with Raul Jimenez close behind. The worse news: at a tournament when Jordan Pickford has had two sub-par performances out of four, Jimenez has scored more goals against the Everton goalkeeper than anyone else in Europe.
The centre-backs
Nico O’Reilly is arguably the biggest victim of how unsettled the back four looks, not least because his development at Manchester City has been crying out for stability to prevent him roaming into the middle.
Whether or not O’Reilly still fancies himself as a No 8, he is too easily being dragged into trouble by Ezri Konsa and Marc Guehi. They can count themselves very lucky that Yoane Wissa was guilty of such an egregious miss.
The approach
There was no real contingency plan for those moments from DR Congo because all the expectation was that they would follow the examples of Ghana and Panama. Congo’s shift to four at the back – not dissimilar to how Mexico should set up – completely threw Tuchel for an hour and all but snuffed out any hope of England pressing to any effect.
What to do about Rice
The safe option – which instinctively feels like Tuchel’s most likely one – is to leave the midfield pairing of Declan Rice and Elliot Anderson alone. In the round of 32 Anderson had more touches than any other player (90), played 10 passes into the final third and created three chances – Rice created two big chances of his own.
The opportunity cost is that Kobbie Mainoo – on his day, just as composed in tight spaces – has not played a single minute at this World Cup and there is always the risk England revert to the staleness of Ghana and Panama. The other obvious move is to use Rice at right-back – that is not a viable solution either, judging by how Arsenal botched that experiment when he was very briefly deployed there during their title run-in.
Read more
- Pete Hall: If only England had 11 men like Harry Kane
- Daniel Storey: In a World Cup that has fleeced fans, one stadium stands apart
The altitude
Aside from the heat (mid 20s), Mexico’s Estadio Azteca sits 7,220 ft above sea level. As far as the players are concerned, Kane said: “My understanding is that we can’t adapt.”
The conditions are so severe they have even affected the movement and swerve of the ball. The body, exercising with so little oxygen, increases breathing and heart rates, leading to dizziness, tiredness and nausea. Ten of Mexico’s 26-man squad play in the country’s domestic league.
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