Why Phil Foden does not play in midfield for England explained

Everybody agrees. Phil Foden is a midfielder. “He can play in a lot of different positions but I think eventually he will end up playing centrally,” says Kevin De Bruyne. “Absolutely, I agree with Kevin,” concurs Pep Guardiola. “I see myself playing behind the striker in the future or one of the eights or 10s at City,” said Foden himself, just a little over a week ago, when he was presumably hoping he would play more than just 20 minutes in the two opening games of his first World Cup.

But Foden is not a midfielder yet. Not according to – [checks notes] – Kevin De Bruyne. “At this moment in time, it is maybe a little bit better for him on the wing,” his Manchester City teammate added, while discussing Foden’s development after a starring role in last month’s 6-3 derby win. De Bruyne feels Foden benefits from the greater freedom and fewer instructions that comes with playing on the flanks, allowing him to “flow into the game”. And as Guardiola says, he agrees with Kevin.

“Playing in the middle, you need to pay a little bit more attention and [he has] some aspects where he still has to grow,” said Foden’s manager, when De Bruyne’s comments were put to him. “He has an unbelievable, natural instinct to play football but when you play in the middle you have to pay attention to what happens around you. In the wing, it is easier. In the middle, you have many things that happen there, especially without the ball. It is this where he needs to improve, but it is normal.”

Both De Bruyne and Guardiola are convinced that Foden is destined to take up a more central role one day, but both have their similar explanations for why that day is still yet to come. And like the teammate who knows Foden’s game as well as anyone, and the manager who has carefully developed the most naturally-gifted English player of his generation into an elite-level talent, Gareth Southgate would appear to be of the same opinion.

When asked to explain why he did not introduce Foden in the stalemate against the United States at the Al Bayt, Southgate grouped him together with Jack Grealish and Marcus Rashford, both predominantly considered as wide players. “We thought Jack would keep the ball well for us and get us up the pitch and Marcus’s speed, we thought would also be a threat coming into that last part of the game.” Why wasn’t Foden considered ahead of Mason Mount in midfield instead? “He doesn’t play there for his club.”

At England’s base camp in Al Wakrah on Monday, Southgate was able to expand on that answer, and his explanation bore a striking resemblance to Guardiola’s own reasoning. “We’re happy with how he is, we’re happy with how he is training. He’s bright, he’s ready and he’s a good player,” he said. “Sometimes the discussion around just plopping him in as a 10 in every game isn’t realistic because in a game like the other night you have to have the ball and there are defensive responsibilities that he doesn’t have to do at his club.

“From the wide area it’s different, the defensive responsibility is different. He’s got defensive responsibility but the role is different. In the 10 you have to cover a lot more ground and be a lot more aware of the spaces without the ball. If that bit of pressure isn’t right then they are through you and into your back line. That is why we didn’t put him in as a 10 the other night.” Southgate said different tactical challenges could arise which could suit deploying Foden centrally, albeit adding: “But his club don’t do that, so there must be a reason for that.”

Like any national team set-up should, England liaise with the clubs that their players represent so as to learn how to extract the best out of them on the international stage. These discussions include questions of a tactical nature, like where they should play and what roles they are best suited to. Conversations with City have helped to inform Southgate’s thinking on Foden and help prevent the national team set-up from falling for some of the wider misconceptions about the type of player he is.

In the fallout from Friday night’s stalemate, it became a common refrain to ask why Southgate had not brought on his most creative player. The England manager could reasonably argue that it was because he was already playing. Bukayo Saka has the most assists to his name at club level of any England player this season. Kieran Trippier was also out on the pitch and leads the 26-man squad for expected assists per 90 minutes, with Trent Alexander-Arnold and James Maddison ahead of Foden on that count, too.

None of which is meant as a criticism of Foden, who still rivals those other names when it comes to fashioning chances, but his greatest strength is arguably as a scorer rather than as a creator. Foden has more goals than assists in each of his Premier League campaigns since breaking into City’s first team proper during the 2018-19 season. And though that breakthrough came centrally, since properly establishing himself as a regular starter at the back end of the 2019-20 campaign, his minutes have overwhelmingly come wide.

In an England context, the Foden debate is not solely predicated on him playing in midfield. There is a valid, convincing argument that he should start on the wing, either in the position that he typically occupies at club level on the left, ahead of an out-of-sorts Raheem Sterling, or on the right instead of Saka. Yet few would have dropped Saka after his two goals against Iran, while Southgate’s preference for inverted wingers cutting inside onto their stronger foot would rule out replacing Sterling.

Whether in a 4-3-3 or in a 3-4-3 and when injuries are not a concern, the choice between Foden or Saka on the right of the attack is the closest call that Southgate has to make. It is not the case that he routinely and steadfastly favours Saka. Foden got the nod at the start of Euro 2020 but a yellow card in the opening game against Croatia hung over him from the start, pushing Saka into the starting line-up against the Czech Republic, after which his form was hard to ignore.

That yellow card, which Foden carried until the semi-finals, was one of what Southgate described during the summer as “stop-start scenarios'' in the 22-year-old’s international career. At the time, a Covid-19 infection was preventing the England manager from experimenting with Foden in the Nations League, which provided a testing ground for this tournament, but by far the biggest setback at international level was the foot injury that prevented him from playing in the Euro 2020 final.

Between that final and the start of this World Cup, those who believe Southgate to be a Foden sceptic might be surprised to learn that he started six of the seven competitive games that he was available for. One was a qualifier at Wembley last October, when England attempted to play Foden and Mount ahead of Declan Rice. It was ambitious. It was exciting. It was what everyone had been asking for. It was also a poor all-round performance, the worst of the qualifying campaign, with far too much space in the middle of the park for Hungary to exploit.

Foden has not been deployed centrally by England since, though his time in that position will come. Almost everyone agrees that he has the ability to play there one day. He is a midfielder, but just not yet. And until then, getting the very best out of him in a role he is more familiar with would be a start.

It is fair to say that Foden’s international career to date has left something to be desired – he admitted as much himself recently – and the danger now is that a player still adjusting at this level becomes such a good player when he is out of the team, that even his extraordinary natural gifts fail to live up to the hype when his chance comes. Southgate is very conscious of that.

“We have to be careful because we are putting a lot of pressure on him now,” he said on Monday. “We’re a team and we need all of the players and they can all play a part but not any one of them is the reason we will win or lose. And we need to make sure we are not building Phil into a situation where, if he steps on the pitch this is becoming really difficult for him.

“The level of expectation [could be] beyond a young guy who is still establishing himself internationally, in a different environment from his club where you’re comfortable with all the players you play with, it’s really distinctive, you’re going home every night, you’re calm with everything else. This is still a unique environment. He is still a really young player and he’s doing brilliantly well. We love him to bits. We also have got to look after him a bit as well.”