England head to Euro 2024 this summer knowing they have a fantastic chance of bringing football back to its spiritual home. The Three Lions cruised through qualifying and boast one of their most exciting teams in recent history, with an abundance of talent, tournament experience, and strength in depth.
The one issue that fans have when assessing the England to win Euro 2024 odds is Gareth Southgate. This will be a fourth attempt at a major tournament for the Three Lions boss. While he came painstakingly close to victory at Euro 2020, negative tactics resulted in a penalty defeat to Italy at Wembley.
Despite being in charge since 2016, Southgate is yet to win every England fan over, and that is down to his record against the biggest nations in the international game.
Indeed, since his appointment, Southgate England have won just seven of their 23 matches against teams ranked in the world’s top ten, and that will need to change if they are to get over the line at Euro 2024.
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In this article, we assess what the manager needs to do to win the Euros in Germany. With time running out on his contract, and a plethora of potential suitors linked with the Three Lions job, here is how Southgate can turn things around against the big boys.
Team selection
Credit where it is due, this is perhaps the first time Southgate has picked his squad entirely on merit. Throughout the qualifying campaign, he had been accused of selecting players that had been out of form at club level, but had performed well for him when called up for England. However, this time around the likes of Marcus Rashford, Jordan Henderson, and Kalvin Phillips will all be watching from home.
In their absence, there is a chance for an England team in red-hot form to perform, and the true headache selection for Southgate will now be squeezing them all in one side.
Playing the right formation
Given the number of goals England captain Harry Kane has scored for both club and country this term, he will likely lead the line by himself at Euro 2024. Behind him, Southgate has a number of options and his formation will be key to beating the big teams.
While the likes of France and hosts Germany will play a controlled, possession-based style of football, England have the players to be devastating on the counter-attack. England odds show they can easily make it out of their group by playing their attacking style, but against the big sides Southgate may need to utilise the pace of Phil Foden, Cole Palmer, and Anthony Gordon – whether that be in the 4-2-3-1 system we saw at the World Cup, or the back three that allows players like Trent Alexander-Arnold to find space in behind.
Experience
By now, these England players should have experienced winning enough big games to get over the line. The Manchester City contingent of Kyle Walker, John Stones, Foden and Palmer have all experienced winning the Champions League as well as consecutive Premier League titles since the Euro 2020 defeat, while Jude Bellingham added the first of what is likely to be many medals to his collection in his maiden year at Real Madrid.
Even further down the pecking order, Alexander Arnold is a serial winner with Liverpool and Jarrod Bowen scored the winner in West Ham United’s Europa Conference League final in 2023.
This is an England side that knows how to win at club level, and now the task is for Southgate to channel that experience and set his side up correctly in order to compete amongst Europe’s elite.
