While there will be much focus on Harry Kane and Erling Haaland before England’s match with Norway, they carry no mystery. They will play. They will probably score.
Of far greater interest is who Thomas Tuchel and Ståle Solbakken choose to deploy as their wingers. Neither team have completed a game this summer fielding the wide forwards who began it.
England have utilised Anthony Gordon and Marcus Rashford on the left, with the Arsenal pair of Noni Madueke and Bukayo Saka covering the opposite flank.
“All four of the wingers are competing against each other at the highest level,” Tuchel said after the opening game against Croatia . With none of the quartet having completed more than 57% of the available minutes at the World Cup or started more than three of the five matches, the competition is fierce.
Tuchel seems undecided on his favoured duo. He has tried five of the possible six combinations, with Gordon and Rashford understandably not paired given that both favour the left. The manager’s in-game decisions will have been driven partly by the scoreline but he has changed his wide forwards earlier and earlier with each match.
Jarell Quansah’s red card against Mexico affected that game in this respect. Saka was withdrawn shortly after the defender’s 54th-minute dismissal, leaving England to play in a wing-less formation.
One pattern has emerged. In each of England’s previous three matches, the starting wingers were the two who had ended the preceding game.
The choices may have been influenced by the style of play Tuchel required for a specific opponent. Gordon leads the squad for average length of ball carry at the World Cup , at 14.9 metres, while Madueke is top for total distance carried per 90 minutes, with 255.8 metres.
Rashford is the leading England winger for carries of at least five metres that ended with a shot, scoring from one against Croatia. Only two players at the tournament have created more goals after carries than Saka, one of whom is the Norway winger Andreas Schjelderup.
His only start occurred when Solbakken made 10 changes for the final group game against France . Having assisted Haaland for both goals against Brazil , the 22-year-old may be in the XI against England.
Free newsletter | Every weekday Sign up to Football Daily
Kick off your evenings with the Guardian's take on the world of football
Enter your email Sign up after newsletter promotion
But Solbakken has been more structured with his use of wingers than Tuchel. The duo of Antonio Nusa and Alexander Sørloth started three of the four ‘first-team’ matches, with Schjelderup and Oscar Bobb finishing each of those.
All four assists provided by these players came from the left, so it will be imperative that whoever occupies the right-back berth for England cuts off the supply line to Haaland.
For Norway’s backline, the task of repelling the threat from wide areas is more varied, even if the need to keep one of the world’s top strikers out of the game remains the same. Kane or Haaland are likely to take the headlines but the success of their wingers may decide the outcome.
Sources: The Guardian
