Gareth Southgate has warned it will not just be a “procession to Berlin” for England amid their injury problems as he admitted that the troubled seasons of Jordan Henderson and Kalvin Phillips have left him over-reliant on Declan Rice.
England will enter Euro 2024 as one of the favourites but Southgate is worried by injury problems in the midfield after omitting his vice-captain Henderson and dropping Phillips, a stalwart of his Euro 2020 squad, in March. The England manager revealed he has never had such a complicated build-up to a tournament with so many injuries, particularly in defence.
But in midfield, Southgate faces a question of who to partner with Rice – with the uncapped Adam Wharton and Curtis Jones named in his 33-man training squad and Trent Alexander-Arnold a midfield option – and believes he may have to change his tactics if Arsenal’s £105m signing is ruled out. He is reluctant to use Jude Bellingham in a deeper role in midfield but accepts he may have to.
He said: “I’ve talked a lot about numbers and players and of course people don’t want to hear it because we’ve got so much talent in certain areas of the pitch. But the impact of those numbers is clear in certain positions. So we’ll just have to do that differently. We don’t have another Rice-type profile of player. So the last few months I’ve been thinking ‘Declan with who?’ and ‘Who if without Declan?’ And they’re the things when everyone is saying we have a procession to Berlin, they’re the things I have to worry about for four months while you’re all watching club football and enjoying it.”
Southgate could alter his system if Rice is unavailable, adding: “That’s possible. That is what we would have to work out because we could still play with two but different profile of two. There is what you do with the ball and what you do without the ball. We don’t really look to play two when we are building with the ball, although again that depends on the profile of your full-backs and the profile of the rest of your midfield.”
Bellingham will miss England’s two friendlies against Bosnia-Herzegovina and Iceland after the Champions League final. He has scored 23 goals for Real Madrid in a campaign when he has often operated as a false nine or a No 10 and, while it could allow Phil Foden to play centrally, Southgate would rather not use Bellingham in a more withdrawn role.
And Southgate added: “It's an option but it's obviously not something he's been doing all season. He's been unbelievably effective and prolific with a much freer role with the ball. At times, he has had to be more restricted without [the ball] - he's had to defend from the left wing in certain games. I'm sure if I stuck him out there that'd get a really great reception.
“But the reality is we've got to find the best way. That could be the best way of using him. Defensively, and let's put Phil into that as well, Phil normally defends as a 10 with a (No) 9 or as a winger. This weekend was the first time I've seen him defending centrally as a four but against a team that was a certain profile and the flow of a certain game. Jude has defended all season either on the left wing or as a floating I'm-not-sure-what-you'd-call-it without the ball, really. If we play them in midfield, we've either got to play one of them in a central two and defend 4-4-2. Or it's two 8s, which is just going to be different to what they've done. That's possible and it could be our best way.”
Southgate feels England could suffer without the experience of the vice-captain Henderson, who he said had tried desperately to be fit in time.
He added: “Clearly with Hendo we’re going to miss a leader, a great person. That’s been a really hard call because he couldn’t have done any more to get himself to where he needs to be but the recent injury in particular, another five weeks, means he just hasn’t been able to find the intensity in his play.”
