Earlier this week Ajax’s social media feed released some haunting video footage of Jordan Henderson closing down the Utrecht goalkeeper. The clip lasts 16 seconds. It shows Henderson running in an entirely straight line from the centre circle, never slowing or breaking stride, alone in all that green space, gripped with an unrelenting fury.
If you’ve ever wondered what it might look like if someone were to strap an improvised explosive device to Jordan Henderson, primed to detonate if he slows down, stops, or turns left or right, then the answer is, it would probably look like this.
This is not to mock Henderson, or to accuse him of what may or may not have been – but definitely was – a display of showy and performative passion. Henderson has changed the flow of elite-level games with this kind of energy. He’s still out there, aged 33, still hungry. In fairness those afternoons on the treadmill in Saudi are clearly paying off. He really is very good at running in a straight line.
In the clip Henderson eventually reaches the goalkeeper. He spooks him into kicking the ball out of play. He turns to the crowd and roars with a kind of primal rage, bathed in that moment in the cold white heat of destiny. That destiny being, to win a throw-in against Utrecht. And more to the point, to keep his place in the England squad. Because it’s that time again. And Henderson is right in the sweet spot.
The next few days are a vital moment in England’s Euro 2024 prep. And just as keenly, in the way people are going to feel about it. This weekend’s Premier League fixtures are the last before Gareth Southgate picks his squad for the March internationals. England have some more warm-up games in June. But this is basically it, the cut-off.
At this stage there are two obvious unfilled spots. The evidence suggests Southgate will want to play 4-2-3-1, the formation for the game against Italy last year. Five of the front six are obvious picks given form and injuries. Jude Bellingham at No 10, Harry Kane centre-forward, Bukayo Saka on the right. Phil Foden, surely now, on the left. John Stones, Kyle Walker and Kieran Trippier, the best available defenders, will fill three-quarters of the backline.
This leaves two. First, the other centre-half, which will just be Harry Maguire; sorry I don’t make the rules. That talented young guy you like, the one who’s hopeful and untainted? It’s all too close now. It’s going to be Maguire. And he’s going to be solid, fine, England’s own weirdly indispensable inherited mahogany sideboard. Yes, he doesn’t fit in the hallway. Yes, he smells of borscht and dead grandparents. Just load him up into the van again.
Second, and more obviously loaded with rage, is the identity of the player who starts alongside Declan Rice. Welcome, in these binary times, to the extreme and unexpected politicisation of the England holding midfield role.
It still seems strange that Southgate, who is above all courteous and competent, should have become such a violently polarising public figure, an inconceivable outcome when he first emerged as England’s mild-mannered fill-in coach, described after one of his early public appearances as resembling an anteater that is only now realising it’s not supposed to be able to talk.
It seemed implausible during the highs of Russia 2018, Southgate’s uncle-at-a-wedding phase. But the world soon began to bite. From late 2019, Bulgaria away, through the emergence of a heightened social conscience around sport, Southgate’s desire to make his players feel better, not to duck questions or just stick to football made him a lightning rod for those wider anxieties.
Six years on there are people who dislike Southgate simply because England managers are there to be disliked, because this is what happens, we get restless. There are others who got there because of the boilerplate politics, who see an emissary of Big Woke-Agenda, leftie, middle class, a bosses’ man, positions so entrenched Southgate basically can’t win from here, will be said to have lost, to have won wrong or won too late, even if he manages to actually win in the first place.
The idea Southgate has an invincible hand of talent at his disposal has long been bandied around as a stick to beat him with, code for trashing his achievements, for suggesting the uplift from nonentity to contender has simply been luck. The difference this time is that it’s true. England really do have a good shot at winning these Euros.
At the same time they also have that obvious midfield hole, and a list of candidates who all come loaded with reservations, loyalties, pre-blame, an ambient noise that Southgate is going to have to erase from his judgments.
The radical, freewheeling, balls-out midfield option is Trent Alexander-Arnold, who has played for England and Liverpool in midfield, and who has a right foot of such beautifully severe precision you just kind of feel it should work. But he’s also injured, so no more time to settle alongside Rice. It just feels a bit raw for this regime, this close to kick-off.
Curtis Jones got injured at the wrong time. Conor Gallagher is a No 10. Kobbie Mainoo is a brilliant footballer but probably could just do with a summer off.
This leaves the most obvious, and most obviously rage-inducing options. Southgate basically wants to pick Henderson and Kalvin Phillips. Both have been given the run to this point. And both are also terrible choices, for reasons that have finally aligned with the noises off.
Both have been dismissed as safety-first loyalty-picks. This is now the truth. Henderson has had his shot, has played in all the big defeats of the last six years. He tends to drive forward from deep midfield, thereby preventing Rice, a better player, from doing the same. Phillips would at least make tactical sense, but he has also had a terrible season and would wreck any sense of meritocracy and reward.
Neither deserves to be selected. Southgate has a chance here to take a step forward, to remember that loyalty and single-mindedness are also good ways of standing still. Don’t give them that stick to beat you with. Mainly because it would be a genuine stick this time.
Funnily enough there is an obvious solution. John Stones is the best English defensive midfielder. He plays there for the best team in the world. And while it is also true that England basically need three John Stoneses, two in defence and one in midfield, it’s not Southgate’s fault they don’t have them. He could just start by using the one he’s got in the right place.
