The heady days of Euro 2020 are long gone. The images of fans climbing Leicester Square’s street furniture in unbridled joy after victory over Denmark in the semi-finals gather dust in the archives. The comedown from that euphoric summer has been progressing for a while, with the abject performances of the English national side during the latest international break highlighting it for all to see. It began with a sterile performance against a severely weakened Italian side, who will not even appear at the upcoming World Cup. Next, 60 minutes of bland nothingness against Germany at Wembley. The crowd in London represented not so much paying customers, as a collection of strangers who had wandered into a football stadium and were sticking out the torturous performance in a strange expression of group solidarity.
Do not be fooled by the final half-hour of the Germany game. The attacking flair and freedom that England’s men finally conjured to produce a remarkable second-half comeback are anomalous. The general trajectory of Southgate’s side since the heroics of last summer has been bleak. I will spare you a deluge of statistics. The sight of Harry Maguire, shorn of confidence and shoehorned into a dysfunctional back three, is painful enough. His continued presence in the side is also more evocative of the reasons for the slump in form.
Put bluntly, Gareth Southgate is a second-rate tactician, whose loyalty to the likes of Maguire and the frustratingly ineffective Phil Foden is borne of a lack of creative imagination. Perhaps Southgate’s dogmatic attachment to the back three is his attempt to masquerade as a disciple of Italian catenaccio, where teams are set up to sit deep and soak up pressure before bursting into life on the counter-attack. Unfortunately, although he selected Eric Dier – a true success story at the back for Tottenham so far this season – he is no Antonio Conte. In a cruel twist of fate, when John Stones – a ball-playing centre-half who is comfortable both in a back four and holding a high offside line – was finally handed a start against Germany, he limped off injured in the first half.
One positive worth picking out of the gloom has been the maturity shown by Jude Bellingham in his recent international appearances. Still only 19 years of age, he is very much an upgrade on Jordan Henderson who, astonishingly, has won as many as 70 England caps. Liverpool fans aside, anybody who understands football will agree that this is at least 65 too many. Michael Carrick, for instance, only won 34.
But Bellingham is a flicker in the darkness rather than a genuine bright spark. Indeed, it is not inconceivable (but extremely unlikely ) that Southgate won’t even make it to Qatar. This would be a shame for him personally, as he would miss out on “one of the best spice markets that I’ve ever been to” if David Beckham’s excruciating promotional video for the upcoming World Cup is to be believed. However, his sacking wouldn’t be unjustified based on recent form. Football Twitter, in its typically delusional state, is harbouring calls to ‘give it to Mourinho on a short-term deal.’ The hipsters waded into this discourse with the intriguing observation that Arsene Wenger is still alive, if not a credible managerial option.
Either way, it is clear to all that the optimism created by the positively un-English boldness that our current crop of youngsters produced last summer has vanished. If you’ll forgive the pun, it has evaporated in a way that makes me think we are already subconsciously preparing for the desert heat of Qatar.