What Southgate could do with right now is a Thiago… or two
England coach has no one in the mould of Spain’s influential midfielder, says Sam Wallace at Wembley
There was a gathering storm as the game edged towards 100 minutes and those old English staples of determination, fitness and an appetite to chase a lost cause meant that they were just the judgment of a Dutch referee away from salvaging a draw against this new era Spain side.
If Danny Welbeck’s goal had stood then a battling draw would have been secured and the story of the evening would have been rewritten to some extent. Luis Enrique said he did not have a proper view of the foul that referee Danny Makkelie gave in David De Gea’s favour, but Spain’s manager thought the right team had won and on that point there was no argument.
Not even from Gareth Southgate who was angry about the decision at the time but circumspect about the outcome of this game. He does not want to give up on the dream of an England team that passes out from the back and dominates possession but watching Spain do it as well as they did makes you wonder how many generations it will take to catch up.
Spain began the Enrique era without three of the greats: Andres Iniesta, David Silva and Gerard Pique, with 357 caps between them, all retired in the summer. From the Spain sides that once dominated the game, only Sergio Ramos endures, his 157th cap at just 32, still capable of pinging a perfect ball out to the wing while being loudly booed. Around him is the makings of another very fine team.
The two nations last met almost three years ago in Alicante when the outcome was pretty much the same. The aim then had been to test Roy Hodgson’s team against one of the best in the world and sure enough it was confirmed that, yes, England had quite some ground to make up. From that friendly only Thiago Alcantara and Sergio Busquets started this Nations League game for Spain, and only Harry Kane for England. But the gap is still the same.
Watching a first half unfold, with just 40 per cent possession, Southgate once again saw what his England looks like up against a team that has the passing game in their blood. For his players there were times when their passing game also worked, not least at the goal for Marcus Rashford in 11 minutes, but just never as often as it did for Spain. Southgate said he had some players who were still “a work in progress” and others who might yet come through the junior ranks, but pointed out he has only 19 games before Euro 2020 to try to reach the level of a team like Spain. “We have to keep faith in the way we’re trying to play, otherwise we go back to what we did historically,” he said. “There’s no way we’ll ever be a top team if we do that. We have to be brave enough to stick to our principles.”
Southgate wants his team to press high and also take the ball short from Jordan Pickford and build the play. There were many times when the Everton goalkeeper instead chose to go long but you could tell that the requirements of the game plan were nagging at his mind. It was probably for that reason in five minutes when he drew back to smash a clearance then slowed down his leg speed and passed the ball short to John Stones.
This is supposed to be the way new England play, but 10 months on from Southgate’s tactical switch to three at the back you can still feel the home crowd wince and ask themselves the question: are we really still trying this?
The second-half problems that surfaced against Croatia in the Luzhniki Stadium have not gone away: all the passes from midfield that did not find their target. The growing sense was it might not be enough to unearth one midfield playmaker – England probably need at least two.
Thiago Alcantara does the job for Spain now, a player so comfortable on the ball that the job of pressing him becomes increasingly dispiriting for anyone charged with doing it. When Thiago is unavailable then there is always Isco. The passes accumulate, there always seems to be more time, and space, and for periods it seemed like Spain even had more players.
For all the improvements Jordan Henderson has made to his game it is evident he will never be a Thiago or Isco. Southgate’s players know this too and they are easily rattled in midfield – the ball passed frantically, the composure ebbing.
The Spain team that went into the last World Cup finals hit a note of discord that was purely of Real Madrid’s making, a freakish confluence of their biggest club’s greed and a weak manager who was prepared to go along with it. Unless Enrique’s hard line with his players breaks a few of them in the next two years, it is difficult to imagine them cracking up again. They treated Wembley like their home ground and it is here that the semi-finals and final of Euro 2020 will be staged.
There is time for England to try to make up some ground before then. But to beat Spain at a tournament, or a team on their level, you feel that England would have to meet them on a really bad day for the opposition.
Where Spain are concerned, they had many of those bad days in Russia this summer. They would seem to have no intention of repeating their mistakes.