Southgate in trouble?
©Imago/Content stadium
England have yet to lose a game at Euro 2024, but disaster seems to have already struck. Falling a laboured 1-1 draw with Denmark on Thursday, England manager Gareth Southgate now finds himself under immense pressure following a tepid performance that could have easily seen the Three Lions lose and put their hopes of qualifying from Group C in serious jeopardy. England look far from their best and the nation is scrambling for answers before their final clash with Slovenia in four days’ time.
While some have suggested that Southgate’s tactics may be to blame, a growing theory seems to be that England’s stars are simply tired after another gruelling season. The likes of Phil Foden, Jude Bellingham and most notably star striker Harry Kane all looked far from their best. And, as such, concerns over the fitness of said stars has been called into question. So how many minutes have England’s key players carried into Euro 2024 and should they be more jaded than their continental rivals? Let’s take a look at the stats to find out.
Which players played the most minutes prior to Euro 2024?
According to Transfermarkt data, no less than four England players feature in the top 20 list of players that played the most football prior to the start of Euro 2024. Top of that list is none other than Barcelona and Germany No.10 İlkay Gündoğan, who played no less than 4,870 minutes of football for club and country in the 23/24 season. Just behind him with six fewer minutes than the midfielder is none other than compatriot Antonio Rüdiger, with fellow German international Jonathan Tah coming in fourth. France and Arsenal defender William Saliba breaks up the German trio by coming in third.
As we can see in the table above, England has four players in the top 20 list. However, most notably, just two of them – Declan Rice and Foden – have actually started for Southgate’s team at Euro 2024. And while both players have hardly shone in the first two games of the campaign, there’s little to suggest that they should be more jaded than the likes of Gündoğan, Bruno Fernandes orRodri, who all finished the season with similar amounts of game time. In no uncertain terms, there’s very little to suggest that England’s squad has arrived at Euro 2024 with more miles on the clock than their rivals.
Interestingly enough, when we extend this out to the top 100 players with the most minutes played prior to Euro 2024 we do see some hints at England’s squad being slightly overplayed. Within the top 100 are no less than 12 players in Southgate’s squad, which is notably higher than their main rivals for this summer’s European Championships. Alongside the four players shown in the aforementioned table, we also have Connor Gallagher in 40th, Kyle Walker at 43rd, Jarrod Bowen and Kane at 62nd and 65th respectively, while Jordan Pickford (75th), Anthony Gordon (83rd), Bukayo Saka (98th) and Bellingham (100th) make it into the top 100 too. In comparison, while Germany also have a relatively high nine players on the list, France have just six, Spain and Portugal have four, while Italy and the Netherlands have just three.
So while there is no single England international that has played considerably more minutes than any of their European counterparts, there are a lot of England players that have played a lot of football this season. Whether that is a real factor in how poorly England have performed at Euro 2024 to date is impossible to truly say, but it will likely be a factor that Southgate should take into account when picking his starting XI for each game. If England hope to succeed at Euro 2024, the England manager will need to pick the players that will be best suited to executing his plans. And in some cases, dropping jaded stars for fitter alternatives may be the brave move as well as the correct one.