The Briefing: England 0 Slovenia 0: Southgate’s side seal top spot in Group C but underwhelm again

England qualified for the knockout stage of the European Championship with a 0-0 draw against Slovenia that means they win Group C.

Gareth Southgate’s team were underwhelming in their opening two games of the tournament and there was little sign of a revolution in the first half of their group finale on Tuesday evening. England dominated possession but managed just four shots on target, and a Bukayo Saka goal that was disallowed for a Phil Foden offside.

Southgate took midfielder Conor Gallagher off at half-time for Kobbie Mainoo and that heralded a slightly improved display but ultimately a goalless display against the side ranked 57th in the world (England are fifth) will not inspire much confidence as they head into the knockout phase.

Slovenia are also through as a third-placed team, and will have to wait until the group stage is completed on Wednesday to see who they play in the round of 16. They finished with an identical record to group runners-up Denmark (including receiving the same number of yellow cards in the three matches) but lose out as they had a lower position in the European qualifiers rankings compared to the Danes.

Danny Taylor, Oliver Kay, Mark Carey, Dan Sheldon and Will Jeanes analyse the key moments from the game.

Why has Jude Bellingham gone off the boil? Yes, a sentence that didn’t seem hugely likely when he powered in that header, Bryan Robson-style, in the opening win against Serbia nine days ago.

The difficult truth, however, is that we haven’t really seen anything of peak Bellingham since. We are getting only sporadic glimpses of his brilliance — because it is, very often, brilliance — and that feels like a problem when England are struggling for cohesion in attack.

Build them up to knock them down? Not at all. If you love football, you have to admire the guy’s talent. Yet Bellingham was so erratic at times against Slovenia (and grumpy with it) that it wouldn’t have been a complete surprise if Gareth Southgate had toyed with the idea of taking him off, putting Phil Foden in the middle and introducing Anthony Gordon to the left-sided attacking role.

It never happened but it must be a concern for Southgate, especially when Bellingham’s below-par performance for Real Madrid in the Champions League final at the start of this month is also fresh in the mind.

Danny Taylor

Did England’s press look any livelier?

With England securing qualification on Monday night without kicking a ball thanks to final scores in other matches, the focus here was on a strong performance as much as a result — particularly out of possession.

Their stodgy performance against Denmark on Thursday resulted in a specific admission from Gareth Southgate.

“We know with the profile of the players we’ve got, we don’t feel the way to press is really high up the pitch,” Southgate said. “We don’t think that’s the physical level of the team at the moment.”

So, all eyes were on England’s defensive approach against Slovenia. The verdict? Better, but still not great. Against Denmark, England’s 26 passes allowed per defensive action (PPDA) — a metric where a lower number denotes a more active pressing approach — was the joint-lowest pressing intensity they have recorded across their games at Euro 2020, World Cup 2022 and Euro 2024.

Tuesday’s group finale saw an improvement, with 11 passes allowed before making a defensive action. Of course, the caveat being that England dominated possession for long periods — meaning there were fewer opportunities to win the ball back and display any defensive improvement.

The intent was clear from the first minute, when Harry Kane hared towards goalkeeper Jan Oblak, supported by Phil Foden, to pin their opponents in. There were a few more occasions in the first half where England roused their fans in the stands with some much-needed aggression to win the ball high up, but the coordination of individual runs was still lacking at times.

You can give some credit to Southgate’s side for improving on Thursday’s out-of-possession performance but, in truth, it could barely have got much worse.

Mark Carey

The Conor Gallagher experiment falls flat

Southgate dropped Trent Alexander-Arnold in favour of Conor Gallagher, only to replace the Chelsea midfielder at half-time with Manchester United’s Kobbie Mainoo.

Gallagher made next to no impact next to Declan Rice, playing the ball forward seven times out of 20 passes in his 45 minutes. It was hardly anything to shout about, and perhaps dispels the notion Alexander-Arnold was holding the team back against Serbia and Denmark.

(Pablo Morano/BSR Agency/Getty Images)

Gallagher’s half ended without him completing a dribble, creating a chance, winning a tackle or taking a shot. He did, though, lose possession four times.

Southgate experimented with Alexander-Arnold, and that didn’t work. He then turned to Gallagher, and that didn’t work, either.

Both players will no doubt feel hard done by, with there being an argument that Gallager has been hung out to dry by the England manager after only being given 45 minutes here, so it is going to be interesting to see who Southgate plays alongside Rice in the last 16 tie against a to-be-determined third-place side on Sunday.

Dan Sheldon

England’s left-side problem: A review

Much was discussed about England’s left flank causing them issues in and out of possession against Denmark, with their right side looking comparably more active — and stronger — with Bukayo Saka supported by the overlapping Kyle Walker.

By contrast, the left side was the flank England targeted the most against Slovenia, with 42 per cent of their attacking touches coming down that third of the pitch — their highest share across the three group games.

Phil Foden was floating across the pitch once more, but there were some decent rotations as he, Kieran Trippier and Declan Rice looked to create some triangles and combine. When Foden tucked in, Jude Bellingham would pull out to the left side and try to build some momentum.

Overall, there were not too many exciting moments to shout about, but it was telling that Southgate’s side made far more of a beeline for that side of the pitch after such disappointment in their previous game.

Mark Carey

England booed off again

For the second time in three matches at Euro 2024, England were booed by their supporters at the final whistle having produced a terribly underwhelming performance. Gareth Southgate and the players attempted to applaud the fans but were greeted with catcalls and jeers.

But this miserable draw against Slovenia was enough to confirm first place in Group C with one win and two draws (and just two goals scored) in three matches. A group that featured five draws in its six games equalled the all-time low for goals scored (seven) in the first phase at a European Championship.

England’s reward will be to face a third-placed team in Gelsenkirchen on Sunday (5pm UK time, noon ET). That could well be the Netherlands, after their 3-2 defeat against Austria earlier in the day, but the draw will not be confirmed until the final two groups are completed tomorrow (Wednesday). Get through that, and they will face the winners of Saturday’s encounter between Switzerland and defending champions Italy.

The list of potential semi-final opponents doesn’t look too daunting either. And with Spain, Germany, Portugal and France all in the other half of the draw, there is a sense that the bracket for the knockout stage looks favourable for England, just as it did at the 2018 World Cup, when they reached the semi-finals by beating Colombia (on penalties) and Sweden while one heavyweight after another fell on the other side of the draw.

But let’s be blunt about this: England have been turgid so far at Euro 2024. International tournaments are rarely won by teams playing free-flowing football from start to finish, but Gareth Southgate and his team have an awful lot of work to do if they are to take advantage of the opportunities the draw has thrown up.

Oliver Kay

A word, perhaps, for Jordan Pickford, who has now kept more clean sheets in major tournaments than another England goalkeeper in history.

(Marvin Ibo Guengoer – GES Sportfoto/Getty Images)

This was his 11th, taking him one above Peter Shilton, and you have to wonder sometimes whether the Everton man deserves a bit more acclaim for his international record.

There are only four goalkeepers — Shilton (125), David Seaman (75), Joe Hart (75) and Gordon Banks (73) — with more England caps. And, though there are better ways to judge a goalkeeper than merely totting up their clean sheets, it is still some feat that Pickford has taken a record off a genuine great such as Shilton.

Danny Taylor

Group C will not be remembered fondly

There were just seven goals scored in the six matches in Group C — equalling the record for the lowest-scoring group in the history of the European Championship.

The only other time there had been as few goals as this scored in a group came in 2016 when Germany, Poland, Northern Ireland and Ukraine served up a snoozefest in what was also Group C. Just one game in that group finished 0-0 (Germany vs Poland), but there were two in this year’s group (tonight’s matches).

Will Jeanes

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(Top photo: Getty Images)