How England towered over Montenegro in five-goal comeback

Gareth Southgate and the England national team flew to Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro for their second Group A Euro 2020 qualifier. They confronted Montenegro before an attendance of 8,329 at the Podgorica City Stadium.

Although Montenegro started off on the front foot, scoring past the quarter-hour mark, England came back to dominate the game and replied with five goals. In this tactical analysis we see how both teams played, using statistics to compare individual player performances.

Lineups

Southgate’s objective during this international break was to give some of the younger promising talent crucial minutes. In the previous fixture against the Czech Republic, Dortmund’s Jadon Sancho was given a stage to shine on for 90 minutes. In this game, Callum Hudson-Odoi was given a full game. Southgate risked playing 20-year-old Declan Rice as the lone holding midfielder in place of Eric Dier who picked up an injury.

Southgate’s squad boasts incredible talent playing regularly under top managers in the Premier League. Perhaps his challenge with the national side is to ensure the system he employs extracts the most out of his players. England have endured a history of criticism of being unable to find the right formula to make some of the best players in the game work together for the national side. But Southgate seems to be changing that stereotype with his results.

England played a 4-1-4-1 against Montenegro’s defensive 4-4-2. Montenegro played directly and focused on exploiting qualitative superiority over England’s inexperienced players like Hudson-Odoi and Rice. England found a clever way to have experienced players cover for the younger ones in spaces all over the pitch

England tactics

Mauricio Pochettino, Manuel Pellegrini, Maurizio Sarri, Pep Guardiola, Jurgen Klopp and Marco Silva: these are the big names under whom this English side thrives in the most competitive football league in the world. Each of these coaches uses different systems of play. Southgate identified the 4-1-4-1 to strike a fine balance among his chosen players.