Gary Lineker has aimed a fresh dig at Gareth Southgate for his 'strange' tactics against Slovenia.
Southgate saw his England side play out another bore draw in their final group game of Euro 2024 on Tuesday. That was enough to secure top spot in Group C and set up a Last 16 tie against Slovakia.
But their performance has been blasted once again, with the Three Lions struggling to create any clear-cut chances. While Phil Foden impressed before being taken off late on, Jude Bellingham struggled in to No.10 role.
Lineker believes that Bellingham's struggles are down to chasing too many 'lost causes'. But he also hinted that Southgate's tinkering is causing problems for both Bellingham and for Foden.
"I think he’s spoken to Bellingham and Foden and said, 'Right, OK, you keep swapping. One goes left and then one goes in the 10'. But that’s a strange thing to do, isn’t it, throughout the whole game?" Lineker told The Rest Is Football podcast.
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"First half, and even in the second half, I saw sometimes Bellingham’s on the left-hand side. Jude, he’s had a bad night. Having had a great opening game, he’s struggled since. I think he chases lost causes a lot.
"Sometimes, you can see him sprinting. I understand why because he’s so determined to help the team, but I think sometimes you’ve got to reserve your energy a little bit. But that’s experience. He’s only 20.
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Gary Lineker has criticised the tactics Gareth Southgate is employing with Jude Bellingham and Phil Foden (Matthias Hangst/Getty Images)"In the second half, I thought you could see that if this team continue to play a high press, chances will come. And we may have been playing that way because Slovenia knew that a draw would get them through. So, they were cautious and sat back a little bit. I understand that. But I saw enough to suggest that England are improving slightly."
Lineker has called for Bellingham to drop back into midfield alongside Declan Rice. Conor Gallagher started alongside the Arsenal star before Kobbie Mainoo replaced him at half-time. And Southgate has admitted to struggling getting all of his young stars into the team.
"We have lots of young players. We’re balancing blooding them in a difficult environment but they had a really good impact when they came on and they used the ball really well for us. We have to build on that, there are lots of things to build on from tonight," he said.
"We have tried a couple of different things and I thought the players who came on did very well. Tonight we started with Conor [Gallagher] who presses well and I thought we did that well at the start of the game.
"We then felt that Kobbie’s ability to move the ball through the pitch was going to be helpful, which he did. I don’t think we were going to go from where we were to winning three or four-nil. It’s not realistic with the intensity of the game but there are a lot of things I was very pleased with."
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