Tag Archives: Jesse Lingard

ANALYSIS: Southgate outsmarts Dalic to avenge semi-final sorrow

Alan O’Brien 

What a shame this England didn’t show up in Russia last summer. Firmly wedded to their fatally flawed 3-3-2-2 system, Gareth Southgate and Steve Holland threw away their country’s best chance of winning a World Cup in decades. Blessed with acres of space, Croatia’s free full-backs eventually decided June’s semi-final at England’s expense. And, in September, Spain’s Dani Carvajal and Marcos Alonso ran riot throughout the Three Lions’ opening day Nations League reverse. For Southgate, that deflating Wembley defeat finally heralded a long-overdue tactical change-of-heart — and not a moment too soon either. Continue reading →

Advertisement

ANALYSIS: Southgate kryptonite stalls super Swedes

Alan O’Brien 

Four decades on from falling for the humble English 4-4-2, Sweden have yet to lose that loving feeling. Popularised in the late-seventies by emigrés Roy Hodgson and Bob Houghton, the quintessentially English system is still very much Swedish football’s go-to. How ironic, then, that the most English blueprint of all would falter at its originators’ hands. Continue reading →

ANALYSIS: Panama pasting papers over the cracks in Southgate’s system

Alan O’Brien 

Even the most facile of victories can harbour harbingers of future failure. So it proved for England, who coughed up four quality chances to tactically inept Panama. Continue reading →

Manchester United 1-0 CSKA Moscow: Van Gaal loosens the restraints to end United goal drought

“We are United, we want to attack!” The refrains of the Old Trafford faithful this evening, one minute after Anthony Martial had been removed in favour of Marouane Fellaini – a substitution that was greeted by loud booing from United fans. Continue reading →