England have ditched their recipe for success with Euro 2024 Gareth Southgate’s biggest gamble of all

In the final few sessions before Euro 2024, Gareth Southgate has been keen to ensure England’s raft of new attackers are properly up to speed with some of the team’s rehearsed moves. He can see the full picture, but the lines are still a little blurred. This team doesn't yet have the connections visible in Euro 2020 qualifying, say, but it’s promising. How couldn’t it be promising with Jude Bellingham and Harry Kane? Southgate is unusually excited.

Such “automatisms” - where attackers instinctively execute moves from repeated rehearsal - are one of those parts of preparation that say a lot about the whole. England have been coming close to the line in a similar way.

Euro 2024 had long been looked upon as one of the tournaments when the entire