John Pedras believes England have already seen a “change” and “unlocked” two key qualities for the latter stages of the Euro 2024in his ability to score crucial late goals and switch “seamlessly” between formations.
Gareth Southgate and his players feel that Jude Bellingham Draw in the 95th minute against Slovakia there was a transformative atmosphere on the ground and there is a feeling that it could create a fear factor among the opposition sides.
However, it has not been clear since then; Ongoing performance concerns, as well as Marc Guehi’s suspension, have led England to work with a three-man defence.
Stones says this could tie in with the determination the team began to develop after beating Slovakia.
“It wouldn’t be a bad thing to create this in the background [opponents’] minds”, said the defender. “As I said before, when we do it at the last minute in such a difficult situation, you believe you can do it again if necessary. I wish things hadn’t gone the way they did, calendar-wise – we needed that to get us to extra time.
“I wish it had been done and dusted off the first doors, but that’s not football. It’s a great tool that we’ve unlocked. We know it’s there now if we need it. It won’t always go our way. I hope so, but it’s very difficult to have in football when you have incredible players who can create high-pressure moments like that.”
Stones also does not believe a change to three at the back would be too abrupt, given how England used it at Euro 2020 against Germany and in Southgate’s first tournament at the 2018 World Cup.
Stones says he wouldn’t directly approach the manager and offer his advice on this, but feels the setup wouldn’t pose any problems.
“I haven’t spoken to him about it, I wouldn’t go to him with a potentially big decision like that. But we’ve done this in previous tournaments: Germany, I remember, in the last Euro; before that in 2018. I think it’s great to have that in the closet for us as a team if we need to go for that and play in that system.
“It’s something that shouldn’t be underestimated for us as a team, that we can do this so easily and seamlessly, and just kind of click together.”
Stones believes that clicking could be crucial to finally generating positive momentum behind the team.
“We have to try to bring that back, and that means winning, playing well and exciting the country. We know they’re behind us and that’s an amazing feeling in itself, but not being at our peak or as good as we know we can be is frustrating.
“This is a point that I defended and wanted to convey to everyone: that we have to do better, continue to improve and progress in this tournament. This week has been great, we have already seen a change. Sometimes, in these games, in these tournaments, winning when it’s not pretty is a positive thing.
“I know not everyone will see it that way, but getting over the line in difficult moments by not playing well… [It] It only drives us to improve and keep striving to play better, and I hope it’s a turning point.
“We have team meetings regularly and we analyze the game, analyze it. It’s important to do that when we go through difficult times, good times too, and sometimes you have an overriding feeling of: ‘We didn’t play against them, we played worse than we really thought, or we played better than we thought. thought.’
“So watching and having a different emotion than actually being on the field is, I think, very beneficial. We created a lot of chances the other day, an improvement. I think suffering was one of the things that took away all the highlight from the performance.”
