IF, as seems increasingly likely Kieran Trippier becomes the 77th Tottenham player to represent England during either of next week’s international matches, it will rubber-stamp a belief that Gareth Southgate is intent on implementing a style that fuses the best elements of Mauricio Pochettino’s system at Tottenham with good, old-fashioned English values.
The Argentine said last week that he loved the aggressive style of British players and he speaks with the authority of a man who has overseen two title challenges at a club operating at the top echelons of the Premier League with just the sixth highest wage bill.
"That aggression is very difficult to find in another country,” said Pochettino. “It is very important to create a good dynamic and it is important to create a united feeling from the beginning of each day. And it is then to me to work.”
Contained therein lies the secret to the Pochettino method. Gareth Southgate must find a way to bottle up this magic dust and sprinkle it on his England players at next summer's World Cup finals.
Undefeated and four points clear at the top of Group F, England are already well on their way to qualification for Russia and a win at Hampden on Saturday will only reinforce that belief. Pochettino’s contribution to furnishing England squads with a production line of talent cannot be understated. Five of the eight English players that the Tottenham manager fielded in the season just ended have been named in Southgate’s squad. A sixth, Danny Rose, would have been included had he not recently undergone surgery on a troublesome ankle injury.
Feeding the Three Lions was a similar story for Pochettino at Southampton, where he elevated the play of Nathaniel Clyne, Adam Lallana, Rickie Lambert, Luke Shaw and Jay Rodriguez so dramatically that all earned international calls. Indeed, of the last 26 players to make their England debuts, 12 have been coached by Pochettino. It will become 13 should Trippier pull on the white shirt against Scotland next weekend or France in Paris a few days later.
Such has been the 45-year-old’s success in English football, that first Roy Hodgson and now Southgate have attempted to piggyback on his methods. There is nothing inherently wrong in attempting to copy and paste a style from club football.
Take mid-2000s Juventus. Here was a team that provided Marcello Lippi’s side with the backbone for Italy’s World Cup win in 2006 and when Spain lifted the trophy in 2010 it was Barcelona and Real Madrid players who formed the spine of the starting XI; in 2014 it was Bayern Munich and to a lesser extent Borussia Dortmund who supplied the personnel for Joachim Low’s world champions.
But there might just be flaws in trying to do the same with players who come through under Pochettino’s tutelage and for the most part these shortcomings cannot be negated easily in the environment international football produces.
The changes made to training regimes and to expectations of behaviour that Pochettino insisted upon when he took over at both Spurs and Southampton required a certain amount of patience before they took hold and that is not something that is always in ready supply when it comes to the England international team.
It stands to reason, too, that if you are asking players to play a high-pressing game, then you have to make sure they are prepared to lay down their lives for you. But the transient nature of international gatherings means it becomes very difficult to foster a club spirit. It is why Southgate has stressed the importance of creating greater harmony within his England camp. One tick in the Southgate box is that, despite the public perception, he is said to be a popular figure among the players and possesses a very astute sense of humour. He has already made public pronouncements to the effect that he will not tolerate complacency and he has followed up word with deed by ditching Wayne Rooney, England’s all-time leading goalscorer. He has also demonstrated a willingness to take on the Premier League clubs on issues such as data sharing and the use of their players.
Getting the most out of Harry Kane, Dele Alli and for that matter Eric Dier is a must. The Tottenham players have been soft targets for the snipers in both the English press and among the fanbase. It is, no doubt, because of the proliferation of their number but also because they have not reached the heights they have hit at domestic level. The Spurs system is organic and so Dier flourishes because Jan Vertonghen and Toby Alderweireld are comfortable moving into the full-back positions when he drops back from midfield to join them in a three-man defence. But that flexibility is missing when Gary Cahill is paired with John Stones, Chris Smalling or anyone else for that matter.
Similarly, Pochettino has devised structures of play to ensure he extracts the most from Alli’s runs from deep, notably a deep cross-field ball from Alderweireld or Christian Eriksen from a more advanced position. Kane benefits from the same deliveries, but he must also be complemented by overlapping full-backs and intelligent wing forwards rather than converted centre-forwards such as Daniel Sturridge, who makes a habit of occupying Kane’s space, or converted wingers like Raheem Sterling who does not hit the byeline often enough.
If Southgate is serious about following the Spurs method he must resist the temptation to panic. But that is easier said than done in the paranoid, impermanent world which an England manager inhabits.
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