00:00Right, hello everybody, welcome to the ACFC NYCHQ and that, again, was deeply uncomfortable,
00:09wasn't it? But England, a slightly tweaked England, did eventually find a way past Panama.
00:14They have topped the group and life is now good and worth living again. But how did they manage
00:21to do that? And because, more importantly, I know what we're all like, why did it take so long?
00:27And should that be a worry? All right, so because everybody's legs are starting to drop off,
00:34as we predicted before the tournament started, England were forced to a number of changes.
00:40Marcus Rashford, Morgan Rodgers and Gerald Quonsa, they come in for Anthony Gordon, Declan Rice
00:46and Rhys James. And that necessitated a shift in shape because you go from a 4-2-3-1, now
00:53very exciting, to this 4-3-3, sort of. And obviously that's a lot more responsibility
00:59for Elliot Anderson as a single pivot rather than in a two. But now, quite exciting, when Harry Kane
01:06drops off the forward line, suddenly you've got four players who can start attacking those spaces
01:11instead of just three. And best of all, yes, very well spotted, two of them are now central.
01:17But this, to me, was still a little bit of an odd change. Because if you watch the Croatia
01:21versus Panama game, you'll remember that the winning goal in that comes from this really good
01:25overlapping run from the fullback into the space that a winger had created. And of course,
01:30when you move to a single pivot like this, the idea will be that Nico O'Reilly will come in
01:35field
01:35to help Elliot Anderson in the buildup before then pushing on to give England like this 3-1-6 shape,
01:42which if you look at them during the attacking phases of the game, yes, there it is. You can see
01:46that.
01:47Nico O'Reilly there is an inside option in the centre of the pitch, not really giving you too
01:52much width. And of course then, because you've got the three at the back here, Gerald Kwanza can move
01:56into being a third centre-back to better cover these areas of the pitch. And my point being here that
02:02while they're both very good players, and I thought both played very well, neither of them are going to
02:06be offering you, with any frequency, a good, wide, overlapping run. Like this was the very start of the
02:13second half. Like the space on the left is right there. You've done the movement, you've done the
02:17hard part, but the run underlaps into traffic rather than overlaps into space. I mean, the thinking
02:24might have been that when Rashford or Saka came in off the touchlines, then you've got like Bellingham
02:29on this side and Rogers that side, and maybe they could make the overlapping runs for you instead of
02:34the full-backs. But that's not really a great use of both their ability or their instincts.
02:42So, weird one for me. But ultimately, you wouldn't think it would be a big deal against Panama. But
02:48clearly, you have eyes, you watch that game. And while this is the momentum graph and the possession
02:53from that match, England were once again very dominant on the ball. They kept it really well.
02:58They really restricted the opposition to the number of chances they had. And those are positive
03:03things. Just like the Ghana game, they struggled to create any real clear-cut chances and looked for
03:10a long time like they wouldn't score. But despite how it might have felt, this was not the Ghana game.
03:15Like if you look at Panama here, they're not defending anywhere near as deep or as compact as
03:20Ghana did. So theoretically, it's an absolutely perfect game to have a Harry Kane type drop away from
03:26the forward line and have people run beyond him because beyond that is actually space for them to
03:32attack. It isn't just the goal line. But what it did have in common with the Ghana game was that
03:37the
03:37opposition absolutely worked their arses off. And every time Kane would drop like here, he comes
03:44away from the forward line to create the space. But he is followed. They are touch tight all the way.
03:49And all he can do is play the ball backwards. He can't get turned. And when they do find a
03:53ball over
03:54the top, their markers are not sluggish. They keep pace with the runs. They don't dive in.
03:58They make it as hard as possible. And when England were able to get Saka or Rashford 1v1,
04:04they made sure they didn't get beaten easily. And the rest of the team would cover him behind
04:09whenever they did. So on the one hand, it isn't the Ghana game because the space actually existed
04:14to attack. But on the other hand, it is the Ghana game because they came up against a very resolute,
04:19very well-organised and determined defensive unit that was playing well against them. But if you could
04:24just cast your mind back like three days to that video, what did we say? To deal with games like
04:34this, Thomas Tuchel did not bring Phil Foden or a Cole Palmer, who will get into the block and try
04:40and unpick it, often unsuccessfully. What he brought was height. And that is why England's best chances in
04:47this game all come from crosses, both in open play and from set pieces. And while that did not work
04:53against Ghana, it did work here because what were England's two goals? A cross off a set piece and a
05:01cross off open play. And not to toot my own cock too much here, but the thing we've been saying
05:07about
05:07this squad is that Tuchel did not bring these really technical and talented pocket players who
05:13probably would have made a really big difference in the last two games because you wanted to build a
05:17squad that was better suited for the latter stages. And the hope would be that before you get there,
05:23when you come up against these really resolute defences, you'd be able to crack them open
05:28with balls into the box. Well, actually, I say that. Balls into the box is one thing,
05:33but unbelievable individual quality is another. So I would like, if you'd just bear with me,
05:39to talk to you about a one Jude Bellingham. In the first half of this game, he allowed Morgan
05:45Rogers to be very forward thinking, go from left to right, and also try to make sure that
05:50Elliot Anderson did not get overwhelmed in the middle of the pitch. Like here, in the seventh
05:54minute of the game, he covers back to win the ball deep for England in the middle of the pitch.
05:59And then 10 minutes later, he covers over to the left-hand side to win the ball on the touchline.
06:05And then one minute later, he covers across to the right-hand side to win the ball on that touchline.
06:10And physically, honestly, he was everywhere in that first half. And with England playing this
06:153-1-6 shape, leaving themselves very open, one of the players in that forward line had to be
06:21really willing to sprint back against the counter-attack to stop Elliot Anderson being
06:27isolated. And Bellingham did that. And honestly, it probably went a little bit under the radar what
06:32he was doing, but I thought that work off the ball was what allowed England to be so dominant
06:37for those first 45 minutes. But then, in the second half, either as an instruction from Tuchel
06:42or just something he decided to do himself, he starts taking a slightly different responsibility.
06:48The spaces for him and Rodgers were not opening up in the centre of the pitch, no matter how much
06:53Harry Kane dropped. But like we said at the start, they were quite frequently opening up down the
06:58channels. And these are all of Jude Bellingham's passes, successful or otherwise, in the first half of
07:05this game. And if you look, you can see the two parts of what he was doing. He's in that
07:09front line,
07:10that 3-1-6. He's floating around the 10 position on either side, trying to access the box. Or he's
07:16dropping in with Elliot Anderson to try and help him out. And these are all of his tackles as well.
07:20You can see he's winning the ball all over the pitch for England at the same time. That's the first
07:24half. And just look how that changes in the second half. He's not floating around the box anymore.
07:31He's not dropping deep. He is specifically trying to access this area of the pitch where all the space
07:37kept opening up. And then on the hour, he attacks that gap and gets in behind the defence, but just
07:43can't quite make something happen. And the ball goes out for a corner, but just look how furious he is
07:49at the fact this still isn't working. Like he's found the space, he's doing the hard yards, he's making
07:54the runs. Some of his teammates aren't and still isn't quite coming off. That is, look at that face.
08:00That is a man demanding standards of both himself and his team. That's important. But he needn't
08:08have worried because from that exact ensuing corner, yes, okay, it's not the height, but
08:12it is the strength. The cross into the box cracks that resilient defence. That's what England have
08:19been trying to do for like four halves of football going back to the start of the Garner game.
08:24And finally, it works. And from there, the game obviously opens up and minutes later, he makes
08:29that exact run from inside to out again, because that is where the space is. And this time, he does
08:34manage to get the cross in. Harry Kane likewise uses his strength, turns a small chance into a great
08:40one. 2-0, game over, top the group, advance, job done. Never think about the first 90 plus 60 minutes
08:49of those two games ever again in your life. And look, don't get me wrong, I wanted them to score
08:54early
08:55and put absolutely loads of goals away here because it would have settled everybody down.
08:59It would have brought that confidence back, would have felt a lot better about the knockout stages.
09:03But weirdly, this performance here does sort of reinforce to me anyway, what I saw after the
09:10Garner game. This England team or whatever it ends up looking like when all the other injuries start
09:15coming in has been built to take on other elite sides in the knockout stages, but has brought
09:22just enough tools to beat the sides it is supposedly superior to. And perversely, me watching those last
09:31two games as bad as they were has got me actually feeling like they'd probably go toe to toe with
09:37a
09:37France or a Spain or an Argentina and not resort to doing what they did in the previous examples,
09:43like the Spain final and the Italy final, which is just defending for their lives because
09:47they can't keep the ball. I feel much more confident about their chances in games like
09:52that. The worry I've got is between here and there would be Senegal and Mexico, which would
10:00be a lot more like the two games we've seen, except against better quality. So look, I still
10:08believe this team is going to be good at doing the thing it came here to do. Just maybe now
10:12I have a slight worry about them, you know, getting to the bit where they can actually
10:17do it. I'm sure it'll be fine. But yes, no doubt we'll talk about all of that as and when
10:21it happens. I can't wait. The sweat is again just part of the conditions here, not because
10:26I've got any nerves or anything like that. But thank you very much for watching. Do join
10:29us here at the Adam Cleary Football Channel for the rest of the tournament. You can subscribe
10:32to us by clicking the button there. Get me across all the social medias at Adam Cleary,
10:36C-L-E-R-Y. Thank you for your feedback on the mic issue. Hopefully we have sorted it.
10:42This is literally as low as it will go now. So if it's still peaking, I'm the problem.
10:46I just project, I'm just too damn big a personality and you'll have to live with it or we'll buy
10:52another one. Whichever feels more practical there. Right, coming home. Bye. Bye. Love
10:57you.
10:58Bye.
10:58Bye.
10:58Bye.
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