Thrilling 25 seconds showed why City quartet are crucial to England
➤ Superb move in victory over Albania should persuade Southgate to build his team around Guardiola’s men
Most national teams struggle for a clear identity. There is no time to come up with something so grand with only sporadic training and a diverse cast of characters who meet between domestic, European and Fortnite commitments.
In practice, England must be flexible. The approach in a qualifier against nuggety grafters like Albania is necessarily different to a theoretical Euros quarter-final against a member of the hi-tech elite such as Spain. The best passage of play in England’s assured victory in Tirana on Sunday suggested a clear and pragmatic pathway – double down on Manchester City.
The four City players in England’s XI (John Stones, Kyle Walker, Phil Foden and Raheem Sterling) were the most from a single side to start for England since four from Tottenham featured – Danny Rose, Eric Dier, Dele Alli and Harry Kane – against Switzerland in June 2019.
All four of those City players were involved in a thrilling 25 seconds in the 50th minute, which turned a neutral position into a hit post by Foden. Walker received the ball while hugging the right touchline just inside Albania’s half. He played a one-two with Foden and sent it backwards to Stones. His cross-field pass to Luke Shaw on the left was fed to Mason Mount, who played the move’s key pass, bisecting two pairs of Albania players to find Sterling beautifully. He picked out Foden, whose first-time shot was tipped onto a post.
Mount’s sublime through ball made the difference, but modern football prizes the sorts of combinations exhibited by Walker, Foden
Reliance on a core of players from dominant clubs is far from unique in international football
and Stones, then Sterling and Foden. Wise movements into space, unflustered passing and a sense of timing which only comes from familiarity.
It was not a particularly City-type move. Pep Guardiola is fond of wide players staying extremely wide, as Walker and Shaw were here, but it is usually his wingers, rather than full-backs. England do not need anything as mind-warping as Guardiola’s phantom full-backs. They just need to hope their four City players stay fit and are available to start against Croatia on June 13.
Gareth Southgate has rightly prized England performances and team coherence above the vagaries of club form, but City are a special case. Sometimes you must play to your strengths. In England, no side are stronger than the team 14 points clear at the top of the Premier League. Guardiola’s City are about to win their third title in four years. As Liverpool’s league win looks more like an aberration with every new defeat at Anfield, this can be called an era of dominance for City.
Reliance on a core of players from dominant clubs is far from unique in international football.
The epochal Spain team who won three successive tournaments from 2008 were unsurprisingly heavy on players from either Real Madrid or Barcelona. Ten of Joachim Low’s 23 in his victorious 2014 World Cup squad were from Bayern Munich or Borussia Dortmund.
By contrast, England’s past three major tournament squads have had no more than five players from any one team (Spurs again, in 2018 and 2016). There is an argument that is a positive, indicating a league with a healthy spread of talent. England’s performances before 2018 suggest otherwise and, in any case, this was before City became truly pre-eminent. In practice, this will not be a significant departure from Southgate’s current thinking.
Sterling is arguably the second name on the team sheet behind Kane, but Foden should not be far behind, and certainly ahead of the thrilling chasing pack for a creative attacking berth, Marcus Rashford, Jack Grealish and Jadon Sancho.
Stones and Walker have had uneven spells since mainstay roles at the 2018 World Cup. Both should now stay in, despite many credible challengers at right-back.
It is just a shame there are not more English players at City for Southgate to call upon. Tragically, unused sub keeper extraordinaire Richard Wright retired five years ago. More seriously, imagine the next World Cup, just 20 months away. Sterling and Stones at the peak of their powers, one last ride for Walker, Foden’s emergence as a top-tier talent and, with apologies to Spurs fans, a line led by Sergio Aguero’s successor – Harry Kane.