Playing both does not work – and it has to be Phil Foden over Jude Bellingham

Difficult decisions for Gareth Southgate as the fourth tournament of his England era flicks over to the knockout stages, and it no longer feels as if this team of 2024 can go on clanking from first gear into second and back again, a juddering journey of unbearably slow progress.

In short, something has to give and that means a manager changing something he might have considered sacrosanct before now. The 21st century has bestowed upon the English nation some wonderful attacking talent but as with past generations, the realisation dawns that in this particular four-week window of summer the team might not be able to accommodate them all.

Above all, the question of Phil Foden and Jude Bellingham now seems to be framed differently. It feels more now like Foden or Bellingham. One of them has to take the No 10 role and the other has to watch him do it. Rather that than what happened in Cologne over 95 painful minutes against Slovenia, when the pair seemed to dance around one another.

In fact, the reality of their relative positions was more jarring than that. In the touch map for the average position of each player for the Slovenia game, Foden and Bellingham’s respective dots overlay one another – a tactical partial eclipse with grave consequences for England. This was the team’s two biggest creative talents fighting for the same territory and was a key part of what made it so hard to watch.

Foden began on the left of a 4-1-4-1 system with Bellingham in the centre, paired with Conor Gallagher, before Gallagher himself was abandoned as a solution 45 minutes in. Foden and Bellingham switched over periodically, although it was primarily Foden obliged to walk the plank out to the left side. For both, it seemed a case of trying to escape the left rather than occupy it.

As a consequence, England played once again without an operative flank on the left. First of all, the team have no orthodox attacker on that side, and 20 paces behind was Kieran Trippier, a right-back not a left-back. That improvised solution was later changed by necessity and at left-back came another right-back, Kyle Walker.

What does Southgate do? Given the drum roll that has accompanied Bellingham into this tournament, it seems we have rushed into his new reality within the space of three poor team performances. Yet Foden deserves to start the round-of-16 game ahead of the younger man. England need to play with wingers who are wingers. There are plenty of them in this squad, including Bukayo Saka, Anthony Gordon, Cole Palmer and Eberechi Eze.

There need be no hard feelings towards Bellingham, but this is a tournament and no tournament is a judgment on an entire career. It is simply a team for a mid-summer moment when form and readiness can be anything and time waits for no man. Even England’s most prolific goals-to-games striker Jimmy Greaves found himself on the wrong side of that line in the national team’s greatest month, 58 years ago.

A tough call for a player who has had the season of his young life, but Bellingham’s goal in the first game against Serbia, England’s only match-winner so far in Germany, has been one of the few bright spots for him. There is no time to wait and see. One can only pick the team who work in the moment – or go home.

Bellingham was not alone in his struggles. This was not Harry Kane’s night either. The captain looked heavy of leg again and even if there was not that defining moment when he was unleashed on goal, it might also be said that he was rarely in the place to do so. There were moments when he was deeper than expected. He could not quite stretch to a Trippier ball to the back post on 40 minutes. These were half-chances, nothing more, but Kane has made a career of turning those into goals.

It is hard to imagine Southgate relishing a choice between Bellingham and Foden and when he was asked the question afterwards he seemed to think the choice presented was between Foden and Saka.

This was a good Foden performance – the first half better than the second – but it was good for reasons different to the polished days and nights he has for City. There he is immersed in the well-grooved patterns of play that Pep Guardiola’s players know so well. This time Foden had to hunt the game. First from a strange perch out left and later from just about wherever he could.

At Manchester City, the little conductor has the game unfold around him. There he is in half-space on the edge of the area. There he is in the pocket behind the full-back. There he is appearing, as if in a puff of smoke, to sidefoot one in at the end of a move. He tries to recreate that as best he can for England, although it is never easy.

Certainly, the observation from Cesc Fabregas, in the BBC studio after the Serbia game, that great players must make the world spin around them, could not be levelled this time. Foden sought the ball relentlessly. That meerkat posture, palms out in front of him inviting the pass. He roamed everywhere trying to get things working.

Yet there are so many other forces pulling the emphasis towards them. Kane dropping deep. Bellingham wandering across the attacking line. When Kobbie Mainoo replaced Gallagher, England looked more balanced and Mainoo deserves to start in that role. When Gordon and Palmer arrived, there seemed the germ of an idea, too. This England team are not what we or Southgate thought they might be this summer – but all he needs now is a team to win four games in 19 days. These are not decisions forever, but they have to be made now.