Gareth Southgate’s flawed England tactics have resulted in frazzled minds, chaos and a team shredded of self-respect, writes IAN LADYMAN

There are ways to underperform or underperform on a football field and then there is the way England did in Frankfurt on Thursday.

Disturbed minds and empty reserves of confidence lead to poor decisions, dismal performance and poor results. Add that to a tactical plan imposed by a manager that simply doesn’t work and the end result is the chaotic and frantic 90 minutes of self-harm that robs one of the tournament favorites of self-respect and apparent hope for a match. against Slovenia on Tuesday, this should simply result in a drastic and lasting improvement.

Where to start? The center of the field seems as good a spot as any.

When announcing his squad for this tournament, England manager Gareth Southgate admitted he had a problem in the center of midfield.

“We don’t have another Declan Rice-like player profile,” he said exactly a month ago.

Gareth Southgate needs to do something different for their final group match against Slovenia

“Over the past few months I’ve been thinking, ‘Declan with who?’ And: ‘Who if we don’t have Declan?’.

“If everyone says we have a march to the last Berlin, those are the things I have to worry about.”

So Southgate can say that he warned us, but what he cannot say is that he has gone anywhere near solving the problem. His admission after the match at Frankfurt’s Wald Stadium that his decision to play Trent Alexander-Arnold alongside Rice had been an ‘experiment’ was quite startling.

For all the talk about problems with Harry Kane and the fact that England have a right-back as a left-back, this is the heart of this team from which most of the problems stem. All teams need a platform on which to play and build, and England don’t have one. All teams need a consistent supply of ball and England don’t have that.

“We’re not holding the ball well enough,” Southgate admitted after Thursday’s game.

‘It’s that simple. We need to keep the ball better and build with more control. Then we defend less and have more confidence.’

Within all of this, there is no magical, complicated coaching formula. Steps forward can be made if Southgate picks the right players and what is devastatingly clear is that Rice needs help. The Arsenal player was imperious in his first season at the Emirates and would grace most teams at this tournament. But his own standards have been so lowered by everyone else here that he was invisible on Thursday evening.

Southgate’s ‘experiment’ with Trent Alexander-Arnold in midfield has not paid off for England

It is also clear that Declan Rice needs more support in central midfield for the Three Lions

If England can find a way to play higher up the pitch, Kane – who has been criticized to no end in the past 48 hours by the likes of Alan Shearer and Gary Lineker – will no longer have to dive so deep in search of the ball and Jude Bellingham maybe just take a step back and don’t try to solve all the world’s problems alone.

Of the front four English sides, only Bukayo Saka has shown any real tactical discipline. At least his performances on the right side seemed to yield something every now and then. Indeed, it was the 22-year-old’s cross that gave Bellingham his goal when things were just as much rosier against Serbia last weekend.

Foden flickered occasionally against Denmark but seemed unable to resist the temptation to move infield, which only added to the overcrowding and confusion. Bellingham, for all his talents, has too often been tempted to take on teams on his own and this isn’t what wins big summer tournaments.

All of this points not only to tactical shortcomings, but also to the emotional and psychological issues Southgate talked about before boarding the team bus to return to the east side of the country on Thursday evening.

To hear Southgate suggest his players were struggling with the expectations and pressure of a major tournament was quite remarkable. Indeed, he was told that players like Walker and Stones are both domestic and European winners. Bellingham, meanwhile, has just won the Champions League and Trippier, Foden, Kane and others are playing in their third or fourth major championship.

“We are in an intense arena and we have to find a way to embrace that, rising to the challenge and understanding what it is and playing in a more composed way than we have done so far,” Southgate said.

A number of top players from the Three Lions, such as Harry Kane, should commit themselves to the team

‘For me it’s not about individuals. It’s about the team and it’s my responsibility to fix that.

‘This is a different environment than any other and I know that over the years. I have to guide the boys through that.

“And it’s simple: we have to play better than we are doing now.”

Southgate is right to take responsibility. This is his squad, his team and his tactics. Likewise, he should not be putting seniors and experienced players through this European Championship.

Germany, France, Spain and other countries already have players taking on the challenges presented here in Germany. England have none – with the possible exception of Guehi – and the reasons for that go beyond the way a coach puts a team together. Germany’s young players play with freedom, England’s with fear.

It has often been said in the past that too often English players failed to bring the club form to the international stage, that the shirt weighed too much. In terms of the so-called Golden Generation of Beckham, Rooney, Lampard and Gerrard, it was regular and justified criticism twenty years ago. Now perhaps for the first time we can also say it about this current harvest.

Southgate must take responsibility, but he must also not guide seniors and experienced players through the European Championship

So far, far too many of Southgate’s players have been unrecognizable during Euro 2024. The 53-year-old said after Thursday’s match that some of his players still have fitness issues that prevent them from pressing the ball as intensely as in the Premier League, Bundesliga or La Liga. It’s hard to understand this. Of the players who started in Frankfurt, only Stones, Tripper and, to a lesser extent, Saka were missing from football by the end of the domestic season.

But England certainly look leggy. The pitch was strangely soft and heavy on Thursday, but in the end it was only the English players and not the Danes who lay flat on their backs on the grass. Physically exhausted or emotionally exhausted? Maybe a little bit of both.

Strange as it may seem after all this, England are top of Group B. They could well finish top even if they don’t beat Slovenia in Cologne. That would give them a tasty match on Sunday against the third-placed qualifier in Gelsenkirchen.

Right now it all feels unimportant. The England we have seen in Germany so far seems incapable of beating anyone of note. Southgate actually seemed calm and measured as he tried to make sense of it all late on Thursday evening. It seems none of his players share this countenance and if that doesn’t change, we could all be home before Wimbledon starts.