ENGLAND’S attempts to play the top nations at their own game and keep the ball on the ground has been the subject of fierce debate.
Gareth Southgate got his message across clearly for the vast majority of Tuesday’s game and there are still many more positives than negatives despite two late Spain goals.
They are far from the finished article but who thought otherwise? The key difference was second-half substitutions disrupted our flow but for the opposition they improved it.
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Nevertheless, England forced Spain out of their comfort zone with tactics that proved spot on — at least until late on when they got ragged.
It’s a disappointment but certainly not a disaster.
Setting up with a ‘high press’ in a 4-2-3-1 formation, there was a front five of Jamie Vardy, Jesse Lingard, Raheem Sterling, Adam Lallana and either Jordan Henderson or Eric Dier.
It was inviting the tiki-taka Spanish to play the ball long and high out of defence — but when Spain did hump it into midfield there was plenty of height in the English team to collect the ball and go back on the attack.
Even when the opposition did get forward, England quickly reverted to a deep 4-5-1, leaving Juan Mata and David Silva no air to breathe.
England were then confident enough to let Spain have the ball and drift sideways and backwards.
We tried to slowly squeeze the life out of them, pick up possession and launch a quick counter-attack.
It’s a philosophy routinely adopted by Manchester City, Liverpool and Tottenham. It is no coincidence that in England’s starting XI were seven players from those teams.
In fact, although this was a deep 4-5-1, it created space in attack by drawing Spain into England’s half.
That left room behind their back four for the pace of Vardy, Sterling, Lingard, Lallana and Theo Walcott.
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Maybe this is the start of something in terms of quickly turning defence into attack.
The only issue is fatigue. You could see it creeping into England’s play. Concentration lapses followed and Spain’s draw will feel like a win.
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