How England’s left side is undermining them with and without the ball

Crisis! Having played two games, England are top of their group, are almost assured of qualification for the knockout stage, and are still to play perhaps the weakest side in Group C, Slovenia.

Half the sides in the competition have played twice — and, of those 12 teams, England have the lowest expected goals against figure (suggesting they are not conceding many high-quality chances) and have only been beaten by an excellent Morten Hjulmand strike from 25 yards. It is, all things considered, not a bad situation to be in.

And yet the nature of yesterday’s performance has sent alarm bells ringing. England did their usual thing of scoring relatively early, then seemingly giving up on attacking any further. They were poor in both pressing and possession play, and the two clear problem areas of the side — the second central midfield slot and the left flank — were even more troubling than in the first game.

Here are a couple of examples that show those two problems neatly. First, makeshift midfielder Trent Alexander-Arnold has the ball in the centre circle. His specialism is playing long diagonal balls, and he sees makeshift left-winger Phil Foden making a run on the outside. But there’s no understanding here — first, Alexander-Arnold delays the pass…

… then Foden has to check his run to stay onside, at which point Alexander-Arnold does play the pass…

… and then it’s badly underhit anyway.

Here’s an incident in the second half, with Alexander-Arnold collecting the ball with space to drive into. He does that part excellently…

… but then, when it comes to releasing Foden, plays the ball behind him. Was the pass poor, or was Foden angling his run inside too early rather than holding width?

That’s up for debate — but they are the two immediate issues for Gareth Southgate. Alexander-Arnold was hooked shortly after half-time and seems unlikely to start against Slovenia in midfield. Foden lasted a little longer, but Southgate must be considering whether he can continue on the left.

The surprising thing about England’s left-sided problem last night was that it caused so many issues out of possession, too. It’s clear England don’t have many players comfortable receiving possession out wide on that flank, but there’s no excuse for constantly losing shape. Here’s an example of Foden and Jude Bellingham almost on top of each other, with Foden frantically trying to sprint back into position before Denmark can play down ‘his’ side…

… but he can’t get back in time, Declan Rice has to move out to close down, and Denmark can work the ball past him.

Here’s another example of the same thing — Foden and Bellingham are both in the No 10 position, and Denmark have a simple job of working the ball out to Joakim Maehle…

… who had the freedom to push into the final third, but got his cross wrong.

Foden has the licence to drift inside and interchange with Bellingham. We saw that in the 1-0 win over Serbia and in this situation early on against Denmark, he’s clearly telling Bellingham to hold his position out on the left while he wanders infield.

At times, though, this is taken to extremes. This movement inside from the flank is perfectly reasonable, opening up space for Kieran Trippier to move into…

… but this is probably too much. Here we have England’s nominal left-winger in a right-centre midfield position — the exact zone that Alexander-Arnold is perhaps the best player in the world in.

Trippier, of course, is not a natural overlapping left-back. But again, while that can be tolerated, it’s difficult to understand why England had such little game plan in terms of pressing Denmark. Here, Trippier feels it’s his job to push up to Maehle on the halfway line, but he’s too late to shut down and gets bypassed easily…

… again, Denmark work the ball down that flank, with centre-back Marc Guehi and central midfielder Declan Rice moving across to close down.

In possession, England simply don’t want to use Trippier, who spent long periods fruitlessly calling for the ball. Here, in the second half, he’s England’s freest player, but Rice prefers to go forward into Bellingham, who is being marked…

… and then Guehi goes back to Jordan Pickford, with Trippier still asking for the ball.

Substitute Eberechi Eze didn’t improve things down that flank. When Rice played him this ball, it seemed an opportunity to dribble forward to overload wing-back Maehle…

… but instead, Eze turned back inside…

… played a sideways pass and drifted into the middle, just like Foden had been doing.

And now, despite a respectable four points from two matches, Southgate seems likely to change his approach significantly.

That will surely involve Conor Gallagher starting in midfield instead of Alexander-Arnold, although Kobbie Mainoo or Adam Wharton, both more comfortable on the ball than Gallagher, are perhaps what this side needs. Another option is moving Bellingham deeper, playing Foden as the No 10 and introducing Anthony Gordon for some proper left-sided width. And when will Luke Shaw be fit?

Essentially, these are the same questions everyone was asking a week ago, before the tournament started. England remain on track to reach the knockout stage, but they are no closer to finding the right balance in their team.