England are trying and failing to be like Tottenham, but could Ross Barkley be their Christian Eriksen?

Barkley is some way off Eriksen's level, but he has the creative spark Southgate needs

England have tried and so far failed to copy Tottenham's template (Getty)

It is now a year since Gareth Southgate took the reins of the senior team and first scribbled down an England squad. In that time, Tottenham Hotspur have provided more players to him than any other club.

Harry Winks, who came in for Eric Dier and showed promise on debut in Vilniaus, was the seventh member of a Mauricio Pochettino side to appear under Southgate, joining the more-established Dele Alli and Harry Kane in England’s front five. Kieran Trippier filled in for his former club team-mate Kyle Walker at right wing-back, while a fit Danny Rose remains first-choice on the other flank.

The two systems that Southgate has gravitated towards using – a 4-2-3-1 and a 3-4-2-1 – are Pochettino’s preferred formations too. The England manager appears to have been attracted to the style of a team enjoying consistent and sustainable success with a core of English players and he has attempted to reproduce that.

It is not unwise to look at the domestic scene, cherry-pick what works and attempt to apply it at an international level – in fact, it is probably the way that international managers should manage. A lack of time on the training ground means familiarity between players becomes all the more important and it can provide a valuable, match-winning advantage.

However, reverse-engineering a system in this manner only works if you have all the parts required to replicate it. While Southgate shares several players with Pochettino and has comparable talents in other positions, he cannot currently call upon the services of a player with the same inventiveness as the man that ties Tottenham’s attacking play together.

Christian Eriksen is now among the best creative players in Europe. He adds nuance to the intense, physical foundations of Pochettino’s style and last season, he was quite simply excellent. The Denmark international laid on 111 chances for his club team-mates, more than any other player in the Premier League, while the Englishman playing directly alongside him, Alli, made less than half that number.

Eriksen-lite Englishmen

  

Chances created, key passes and forward passes per 90 minutes in 2016/17 Premier League

Christian Eriksen

CC: 3.16
KP: 2.76
FP: 31.07

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Ross Barkley

CC: 2.54
KP: 2.3
FP: 26.49

Jason Puncheon

CC: 1.72
KP: 1.57
FP: 26.48

Nathan Redmond

CC: 1.77
KP: 1.74
FP: 16.48

Raheem Sterling

CC: 1.65
KP: 1.43
FP: 15.83

Adam Lallana

CC: 1.62
KP: 1.35
FP: 29.53

Dele Alli

CC: 1.51
KP: 1.30
FP: 20.63

That is not to denigrate Alli, who is a wonderfully effective player, but he cannot be expected to do the same job at international level as Eriksen does for Tottenham. It seemed like he was asked to do just that on Sunday though, as Southgate paired him with Marcus Rashford behind Kane in the aforementioned 3-4-2-1. Rashford could hardly be more dissimilar as an attacking player from Eriksen, so it was left to Alli to create. He won the penalty that led to the game’s only goal and aside from that, produced little else.

This invited the question: if you take such creativity out of a system that thrives on it, how successful can that system be? If Southgate’s England wishes to play in such a way, do they not need to find their own Eriksen? Look at the squad named to play Slovenia and Lithuania and you come up short of options, but there is one currently-unavailable, previously-unfancied English player who came relatively close to Eriksen’s level of output last year: Ross Barkley.

Barkley’s England predicament remains a delicate one. After not being used at the 2016 European Championships he was omitted from Sam Allardyce and Southgate’s opening qualification squads. The Everton midfielder was then recalled in March but, after again travelling and not playing against Germany and Lithuania, he ‘liked’ a tweet which noted that he had sat out of all the last seven international games he was present for.

Southgate appears to share the doubts many hold about Barkley. His decision-making has regularly been called into question, his performances at club level against quality opponents have often been poor and there is a sense that he needs to be more receptive to advice. Gary Neville, assistant to Roy Hodgson with England, said in the spring: “I desperately want him to become the best player that he can be, the best player in the Premier League, but it [the issue] is concentration.”

Yet at the time of his last call-up, Barkley was beginning to show that these problems are behind him. His post-Christmas form was arguably the best of his Goodison Park career to date and it appeared then as if some very public tough love from his manager Ronald Koeman had made an impression on him.“I’d say it’s up there with my best,” Barkley said prior to joining up with England. “I’m playing with confidence again and my consistency levels are going really well."

Whether some more very public discussions about his future have derailed this progress remains to be seen. Barkley, whose contract expires at the end of the season, is expected to leave rather than renew terms and ironically, Tottenham are among the favourites for his signature. Come January, he could be Eriksen’s understudy, perhaps even his future replacement.

For England, there are obvious risks in that sense and should the move transpire, Barkley’s playing time would probably suffer in the short-term. Yet if he can recover from the hamstring that has caused him to miss these opening two months of the season and regain the rhythm he found earlier this year, Southgate may find himself relying on yet another of Pochettino’s players and this time, one who can play the Dane.