After two largely disappointing displays, the final nine minutes of the second half ending with an ominous send-off, it might be worth remembering why England needed such a midfielder Trent Alexander-Arnold in the first place. Three successive tournaments had ended with the English public wondering what would have happened if all they had been able to do was wrest control of midfield from Luka Modric, Jorginho And Aurelien Tchouameni.
Alexander-Arnold came like manna from heaven. As a right back, Liverpool’s No. 66 was more of a wide playmaker, whose biggest strengths lay in the final third. He had been a difficult match for a conservative English team. As the 2022/23 season progressed, Jurgen Klopp began to turn his full back more inwards, putting Alexander-Arnold in positions in midfield where he could influence the game as a deep-lying playmaker. If that was where he ended up for his club, why not let him start there for his country? What greater upgrade could there be to England’s control of the games than playing a role previously occupied by England? Jordan Henderson And Kalvin Philips and hand it off to one of the best passers in the sport?
So far, that upgrade is only visible in patches at best. Ironically, Alexander-Arnold’s best move of the dismal 1-1 draw against Denmark came just before Conor Gallagher replaced him, a usually scorching pass over the top that stuck Kasper Schmeichel in no man’s land and which one Bukayo Saka did well to hook into the side net. No one in the tournament so far has averaged more accurate long balls per 90 than England’s number 8. In his 54 minutes on the pitch, Alexander-Arnold created more chances and made more boundary-breaking passes than anyone else.
England’s failures were not his own and his departure was hardly a harbinger of an immediate upturn in form. That the Three Lions were so disappointing may have more to do with the fact that their backbone — Harry Kane, Declan Rice And Johannes Stones in particular – looked largely anomalous. The reason Alexander-Arnold stands out is that he promised to be England’s ceiling raiser, the man whose trickery in the heart of the field could turn England from tournament contenders into winners. That hasn’t happened yet.
Perhaps that’s simply because it’s too late to teach Alexander-Arnold how to be a proper midfielder, not how to be a right-back who jumps onto the pitch when necessary.
“When you play in central midfield it’s like muscle memory,” says CBS sports analyst Nigel Reo-Coker, a seven-year veteran of engine room matches in the Premier League. “You are very aware of danger, when to press and when not to press. Your body shape is something you need to understand, as is your positioning.
“If you look at Trent with Rice, sometimes the distances are too tight. He doesn’t know when to drop and protect the attacking player, today Christian Eriksen And Rasmus Hojlund. When England do have possession, he is too square, too much in line with Rice. It allows for a simple ball between the two of them, between the lines. Whoever you are playing against will break free and through you. If he is there to provide more crosses, he should be higher up the pitch.
“You can’t learn these things overnight. The more you play in central midfield, the more you see the danger and understand how your positioning affects the opponent. It worked tactically and sometimes not in the match, of Judas Bellingham since you are also free, you could put a blanket over Rice, Alexander-Arnold, Saka and even Saka and Kane. They are so tight and narrow in the middle of the field. A natural central midfielder would know that he can dominate that area and dictate where players can stand. They were too flat, too square.”
Perhaps much of this could have been resolved, or at least mitigated, if Alexander-Arnold had had more representatives in the English engine room. Southgate has for some time shown an interest in moving the Liverpool man onto the pitch, but injuries have meant that the only teams to face a Three Lions midfield including Alexander-Arnold before this tournament are Andorra, Malta, North Macedonia and Bosnia. Those are hardly the kind of teams that can give anyone an idea of how the “experiment” will work on the business side of a major tournament, especially if the subject isn’t playing alongside Rice and Bellingham.
In flashes there are signs that something might work. One of England’s best moments in their opening win Serbia came when Alexander-Arnold had gone into a space and presented Rice’s corner in such a way that every pass on the pitch could have been available to him. He picked the right one, a beautiful ball that hung over the top for Saka to chase down.
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Seated in the right inner canal, advanced from Rice, positioning itself in a spot not too dissimilar from that from which Kevin De Bruyne wreaks havoc in a Manchester city shirt, Alexander-Arnold looked ready to deliver a series of precise crosses into the danger zone. Was that the best use of his qualities, rather than taking the ball from the England centre-backs to allow his team to get on the pitch? Southgate tried some of that approach early on against Denmark, but apparently whatever he tried didn’t work.
Perhaps the manager himself does not know exactly what he wants from Alexander-Arnold. His comments after the match would suggest as much.
“He’s had moments where he’s delivered what we thought he would do,” Southgate said. “We know it’s an experiment. We know we don’t have a natural replacement for Kalvin Philips. We’re trying different things and right now we’re not flowing the way we would like.”
Whatever Alexander-Arnold is, he is not a natural replacement for Philips, a mobile destroyer rather than the pace setter England have clamored for in recent international history (while occasionally ignoring the qualities of Michael Carricks and Owen Hargreaveses). It’s not entirely clear that Alexander-Arnold is, not when he attempts just 43 passes against Serbia.
Again, what else is there? Twice Southgate has turned to Conor Gallagher, a natural midfielder but whose best performances usually come in a more off-ball role. Kobbie Mainoo likes to have the ball at his feet, but the great quality of his young career seems to take the ball away from the pressure that doesn’t always occur in the international game. Adam Wharton could provide something England need, but even Southgate’s most virulent critics could possibly Admit that six months of Premier League football isn’t much.
Amid all the commotion, England are where they need to be: at the top of their group and almost certainly heading to the knockout stages. This team’s moderately successful tournament runs under this management included disappointing draws against weaker opponents, notably Scotland and the USA. On those occasions, however, there was a sense that it was an established car that only needed a little tuning, and not one that still hadn’t figured out which engine would get it going. The time for experimentation will soon be over and Southgate may not yet have enough information to know whether Alexander-Arnold can be what England need to win Euro 2024.
