- Hamann thinks Gareth Southgate needs to earn respect by dropping big names
- He has urged Southgate to replace three of his front four with fresh faces
- LISTEN to It’s All Kicking Off! EUROS DAILY: England were ‘abysmal’, ‘stunk the place out,’ and played like a ‘five-a-side team of kids’
Didi Hamann has proposed an extraordinary tactical revolution for England – dropping Phil Foden, Jude Bellingham, and Harry Kane.
The German pundit believes Gareth Southgate has lost the respect of the team and that the only way to regain it is by being brutal with big names.
His radical proposal comes after England qualified for the last 16 of the Euros via a dreary 0-0 draw with Slovenia.
None of the names Hamann mentioned have hit the heights they’re capable of, though Bellingham and Kane are England’s only scorers at Euro 2024.
‘If you stick to these big players and they clearly don’t perform, I think there’s a case to drop them. I think there’s a case to drop Foden, Bellingham, and Kane,’ Hamann told Irish broadcaster RTE.
‘As a manager, if you want to get the respect of the whole squad, you have got to go after the big boys. If you go after the small boys, people won’t respect you.
‘I think he’s at a stage now where the public have lost faith in him, the pundits have lost faith in him and England, and the team have lost faith in him as well.
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‘Some of the substitutions you can’t follow, you don’t know what he’s thinking.
‘I think the biggest problem is; they’ve got Foden and Bellingham in the same team. It clearly doesn’t work, but he hasn’t got the bottle to drop either of them.
‘I think he’s got to take one of them out, or move Bellingham a bit further back, but he doesn’t want to do this because for some reason he thinks Bellingham has to play in a position behind Kane.
‘If he drops one of the two, that gives him a chance to bring Palmer in, bring Gordon in, bring Eze in, whoever. You’ve got so many players. Jarrod Bowen came on last week and set up the chance for Kane and he doesn’t do it.
‘Gallagher isn’t or wasn’t a problem. He’s not the problem of that England team.
‘It’s probably too late now. If you go after the lesser players, it doesn’t look good on the manager, and that’s what he’s done in the tournament.
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‘He’s taken Alexander-Arnold, he’s an easy target. Gallagher comes off at half-time. We probably don’t see Gallagher again for the rest of the tournament.’
Swapping in Conor Gallagher for Trent Alexander-Arnold for England’s final group game was the only change Southgate has made to his starting line-up this tournament.
Kobbie Mainoo, Cole Palmer, and Anthony Gordon were all a breath of fresh air when they were gradually introduced in the second half against Slovenia.
There have been calls for Bellingham to sit deeper, with Foden moving into the number 10 role from the left flank, allowing Gordon, a natural left-winger, to occupy his preferred role and bring greater width and directness to the side.
Hamann’s shout is at the extreme end of the spectrum and it is hard to see Southgate making such drastic adjustments to his team now, considering he didn’t do it in the group stages.