MARTIN SAMUEL
Why isn’t Dele Alli dazzling for Southgate?
When Joachim Low wanted to bring his Germany team closer to Spain, the first thing he did was look at dwell times.
In football, the dwell time elapses between receiving the ball and moving it on. Germany were, on average, almost two seconds slower than Spain in thinking and passing. By the time they won the World Cup in 2014, Low had ensured they were faster. You do not want to know the brutal reality of england’s dwell times. Suffice to say, they are significantly outside even what Low considered unacceptable.
This is the root of why england struggle. Fear makes a team slow; it makes them cautious. even the country’s finest players — Dele Alli, Raheem Sterling — become more ponderous in an england shirt.
They need time to think and the first thought is to play safe. Against Malta on Friday, where was the daring, the swagger of a team confident in their skin?
Tonight brings the biggest game of Gareth Southgate’s tenure as manager. A Slovakia win would put them top by a point, facing a trip to Scotland and a home game against Malta to cement their campaign. england would in all likelihood be consigned to the play-offs, at best.
The mood at Wembley may prove influential. If england labour once again, the anxiety will spread — from the stands to the pitch, and back again. It has been this way for many years now, for too long, and it is getting worse.
Think when england have played at their best in the last three decades and a pattern emerges. At the World Cup in 1990, the european Championship in 1996, the european Championship in 2004. Those teams were ambitious, high tempo. They tried to win with a certain style. It is not that Southgate’s squad is appreciably worse in terms of talent, more that the aspiration has been lost.
Alli burst on to the international scene with confidence that is rarely on display now — he has scored once, at home to Malta, since that day against France; so, too, Sterling. Marcus Rashford is simply underused. Perhaps the greatest disappointment when watching england these days is the memory of these same players with their clubs.
One might make the excuse that Sterling, for instance, is more effective for Manchester City because of the calibre of players around him.
Until one remembers that in proximity are harry Kane and Alli, two players who would stand a very good chance of making the Manchester City team. And what is the explanation for Alli’s descent into insipidity? In the bulk of england games he has Kane ahead of him, eric Dier behind, Kyle Walker and Danny Rose down the flanks.
These are familiar faces, lending themselves to a conversant, Tottenham-like game. So, why don’t england play with pace and freedom, as Tottenham do at their best?
For Alli, in particular, this is a huge campaign. If he has ambition to play for one of europe’s biggest clubs — and a recent change of agents suggests he does — he needs a tournament of significance.
Real Madrid still sign galacticos and in a World Cup year the competition serves as an audition stage. In 2010, the recruitment of Mesut Ozil and Sami Khedira followed the strong showing of a young Germany team. In 2014, Real Madrid bought James Rodriguez, the break-out star of the tournament, Toni Kroos from winners Germany and Costa Rica’s Keylor navas, who was among three shortlisted for best goalkeeper.
Madrid know their fans expect to see the World Cup’s best players at the Bernabeu the next year.
So, tonight is important for Alli, too. Privately, senior FA officials say Southgate is not under pressure once in Russia, but not to qualify would be a disaster. For Alli, the scrutiny is even greater. he doesn’t just need to get there, he needs to impress. Anonymity is not a good look for a player with designs on the pinnacle of europe’s elite.
Yet beating Slovakia this evening is a step Alli, and england, will surely have to make before reaching Russia. It may seem incongruous to suggest england ground their way to a 4-0 win in Malta, but it was not a scoreline that reflected the performance, and if they play that way tonight there will be trouble.
Slovakia will be organised, as they have been in recent previous meetings, but in players such as Marek hamsik, captain of napoli, they have the capacity to hurt england on the counter-attack, too.
Certainly, the slower england are the more opportunity Jan Kozak’s team will have to regroup and make it hard to penetrate. It is in these moments that england’s dwell time, the ability to think quickly and move the ball on, will be vital. It used to be that england lost in tournaments to the first good team they played, now they are equally vulnerable to the well-organised, such as Iceland. To change that, Southgate and his players must confront this risk aversion.
This fixture has already turned into a far bigger drama than it should have been. england must be bolder and sharper if it is not to escalate into crisis.