Two steps forward, one step back. In a way, this has been the story of Gareth Southgate’s England in microcosm. Stirring progress followed by chastening tournament defeat; goodwill earned and then squandered; the heartening emergence of Conor Coady and Tyrone Mings tempered by the sharp decline of Harry Maguire. And here again a broadly encouraging international week curdled at its climax, defeat to Denmark an unhappy epilogue after the wins over Wales and Belgium.
Naturally the temptation was to cast Maguire as the villain of the piece, his first-half red card changing the complexion of a game that England should comfortably have had in their grasp. Yet even after going 1-0 down to a disputable penalty, and even with depleted numbers, England’s failure to impose themselves on the contest raised wider questions. Whatever became of the freewheeling, free-scoring team of last autumn? What happened to the verve, the strut, the desire to dominate? Useful lessons have been learned. The comeback against Belgium offered a handy template for how England might approach games against more technical sides. Kalvin Phillips and Dominic Calvert-Lewin have both catapulted themselves into the mix. Harry Kane has been somewhere close to his menacing, effervescent best. And Kyle Walker has had a super week, zipping forward from centre-back with his pleasantly carefree gait, like a child tiptoeing through a field of rabbits.
Another player to have cautiously advanced his case over these three games is Mason Mount. This, admittedly, will not be a universally popular view. For some reason, Mount has always seemed to attract a level of scorn out of all proportion with anything he does on the pitch. On social media, Southgate’s affinity for Mount – who has featured in 10 of England’s past 11 games – has become something of a running joke. And somehow Mount has always laboured under this cloud of side-eyed suspicion: the player whose face fits just a little too well.
Part of Mount’s problem, you feel, is the lack of a back-story. There has been a certain frictionlessness nature to his youthful rise, from top academy to Frank Lampard’s Derby to Frank Lampard’s Chelsea to Gareth Southgate’s England: a sense of paths being smoothed, obstacles being cleared. The parallel rise of Jack Grealish, one of Mount’s leading rivals for a starting place, has only sharpened the caricature. Grealish v Mount is one of those duels that seems to represent something more elemental: authenticity versus privilege, urchin chic versus academy polish, the people’s champion versus the teacher’s pet, the Big Six versus the Bottom 14.
It’s a dichotomy that does both a disservice: painting Grealish as a raw, undisciplined maverick and Mount as a beige, pliant factotum, Grealish as the man you want on the ball and Mount as the man you want without it. In fact, their differences are slighter than many imagine. Certainly you can see why managers adore Mount’s work out of possession. He has a terrific engine, is energetic and alert in the press, reads the game well. His runs into the channels, playing the full-back and the centre-back off each other like mugs, are deceptively clever.
Yet to focus on Mount’s hustle risks understating his technical quality.
Early in the game he produced a delicious swivel-turn to beat Thomas Delaney near the right corner flag. His delivery from the right was frequently dangerous. Along with his Chelsea teammate Reece James and his childhood friend Declan Rice, he formed a threatening triangle on the right flank, contrasting sharply with England’s dysfunctional left. He was at the heart of much of what England did well.
Maguire’s dismissal, leaping into a desperate tackle as if it were a Mykonos water slide, prompted a sudden readjustment. As England chased their way back into the game, as James was forced into a more defensive role, Mount slotted dutifully in on the right of a 4-2-3, a gap-plugger as much as a gap-finder, and gradually the promise of that vibrant first half hour faded.
He still had his moments. With 25 minutes left there was a glorious chance to equalise with a header from a corner. But by and large his second half consisted of running and chasing, scrapping and scraping. Mount left the field on 74 minutes as an emblem of England’s performance overall: inspired when they were, subdued when they were too, thereby leaving unanswered the question of whether he is a player who shapes games or merely reflects them.
It’s a question that continues to define Southgate’s England, a team caught between the rock of ambition and the hard place of tournament pragmatism. Grealish is the man for the team England aspire to be; Mount is the man for the team they have now. He runs and runs, he does his job, he chips in with goals and assists, and yet somehow the populist appeal of a Grealish will always be beyond him. It’s hardly his fault, of course. But in this febrile new normal, in a land crying out for folk heroes, it’s something he’s going to have to get used to.
