Monday, December 23, 2024

Euro 2024: Space to attack into? Why Dutch plan might suit England

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As I said at the start, what I really like about the Netherlands is that when things are not working, Koeman is not afraid to change it.

For example, in the Austria game, he brought Simons on for Joey Veermans after 35 minutes and ended up pushing Lutsharel Geertruida, who was playing at right-back instead of Dumfries, into an inverted midfield role that transformed the momentum of the game, even though they ended losing it late on.

At half-time against Turkey, when the Dutch were trailing 1-0, he basically went from a 4-3-3 to a 4-4-2 formation and put Wout Weghorst up front with Depay. This time, they were the winners.

So, however the Dutch are set up at the start of the game, you can be sure they will give England some different problems depending on what happens during it.

Hopefully England won’t go behind and won’t have to be reactive like that, but there is still likely to be a time in the game when they need to make changes too.

That was definitely the case against Switzerland when, even before the Swiss took the lead, it felt like Southgate needed to freshen things up.

This time, Koeman won’t wait… and neither should he.

Danny Murphy was speaking to BBC Sport’s Chris Bevan in Berlin.

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