Gareth Southgate’s plan for victory: Rope-a-dope, then knockout blow

England have bagged 12 goals in four games to be this World Cup’s top scorers. Eight different players, a third of the outfield members of the squad, are on the scoresheet in Qatar, which is unprecedented. There is a lot to be said for this particular rhythm.

Perhaps slow-slow-quick will find its limit when England face France in the quarter-final on Saturday evening - Kylian Mbappe brings his own crashing cymbals - but Southgate’s England have made the last eight playing like a team with a plan and a manager who, despite what you may have heard, knows what he is doing.

It shows a certain single-mindedness to resist the clamour, the noise; to pick Jordan Henderson when there are sexier alternatives and watch him score an excellent first goal against Senegal; to put Marcus Rashford back on the bench and see Bukayo Saka add an exquisite finish; to be loyal to Harry Maguire when most told him it would end in tears. England have not conceded a goal in their past three matches.

Release the handbrake, everyone says. Southgate brings the experience of 57 caps, tournaments with England Under-21 and the senior team to insist that cavalier charges are not a winning method on the biggest stage.

He is criticised as cautious without any reflection that it may be that very pragmatism, and stability, that has worked so effectively over three tournaments. With victory over the African champions last night (Sunday), Southgate has six knockout victories in five years. Consider this. Before him, there had been six knockout victories by England teams across 18 tournaments since 1966.

No England manager has better understood the baggage of expectations and pressure, which is why he wants his team, first, to be stout and redoubtable. He is not about to change his personality or beliefs that go back to many years of playing for England.

When people tell Southgate that the stylish, rousing 4-1 victory against Holland at Euro ‘96 should be the benchmark for England in big tournament games, he likes to remind them that “there was also a Switzerland game, a Spain game and half a Scotland game” when the crowd grumbled during dull passages and the team had to dig in.

“I also remember watching the rerun of ‘66 [the World Cup final],” he said. “We were [leading] against [West] Germany, the team passed backwards and the crowd were booing. Plus ca change.”

In other words, tournament runs are established on making fewer mistakes than the opposition and hoping to have enough quality to pick them off. With the depth to cope amply with the absence of Raheem Sterling last night (Sunday) given that England could bring Rashford and Jack Grealish off the bench, England have the options to be patient, to make the plan work.

A pattern has developed here of England spending at least half an hour weighing up opponents - John Stones and Maguire passing the ball between them - as if the plan is to lull everyone to sleep before striking. Sven-Goran Eriksson’s well-worn comment of “first half good, second half not so good” has been adapted - first half hour barely worth watching - but it has worked. England came out for the second half against Wales and killed the game off in less than five minutes.

Here, it was the seven minutes before half-time when England suddenly changed the tempo. And what joy it was to see Henderson pounce and later depart to an ovation. Another unheralded player trusted by his manager and rising to the occasion.

Tournaments are about seizing decisive moments - France took time to break down Poland - and few players at this World Cup are making key interventions like Jude Bellingham.

After Michael Owen in 1998, Wayne Rooney at Euro 2004, England boast the most exciting teenager here. Bellingham showed off his extraordinary range of gifts but part of the reason he has been so effective is that the introduction of Henderson alongside Declan Rice has given him the freedom to use his athletic prowess further forward.

England play in bursts - their own version of rope-a-dope - and there was no better illustration than the brilliant counterattack led by Bellingham, which brought Kane’s first goal here. Who would have imagined that the captain would be the eighth different player to score for England?

Suddenly a tempo, which was starting to cause agitation in its slowness, made sense. “I know what the narrative is around how we set the team up,” Southgate said before the tournament. “But the funny thing is I don’t remember any of this around the 2018 World Cup. Or when we played Germany, Ukraine and Denmark” - in Euro 2020 - “people weren’t saying it wasn’t good to watch.”

A slow, laboured first half-hour here was soon forgotten as we added up Southgate’s wins that now stretch to 11 at major tournaments. Colombia, Sweden, Germany, Ukraine, Denmark and now Senegal in knockout games is a list that some will dismiss as mediocre but those who have followed England for long enough know that control of this win, once a few early jitters had been survived, is not to be taken for granted.

Dependability and reliability: there is a lot to be said for it. Solidity is what largely enabled England to reach the final of Euro 2020. We remember a rousing win over Germany and a rout of Ukraine but England’s ability not to concede a goal until the semi-final was instrumental in their success.

It is Southgate’s way and some believe it limited. They return to the semi-final defeat to Croatia and Euro 2020 loss to Italy as evidence of a man who could not change a game - and it is more than possible that he will face that challenge against the world champions with the most thrilling player on the planet on Saturday evening.

Southgate will surely switch to a back three, with Kyle Walker on the right side of it to support Kieran Tripper in teaming up to try to contain Mbappe. That, at least, seems common sense and Southgate has rather a lot of it. England march on to the manager’s beat; a measured man banging the drum.

- The Times