Versatile Phil Foden is no worry for England as Gareth Southgate works on perfect formula

Five minutes gone at Wembley, and in the sunshine in front of a socially-distanced crowd, Phil Foden, hair dyed a la Paul Gascoigne on the same patch at Euro 96, shimmies inside a Croatian defender and curls towards the far corner to launch the summer he intends, even expects, to make his own.

Except rather than find that corner to give England their opening goal of Euro 2020, the ball comes back off the post. Instead, a little over an hour later, Raheem Sterling scores the game's winning goal and goes on to be the campaign's star.

To call the miss a sliding doors moment would perhaps be to offer it undue providence for what came next, but it is true that from that point Foden's tournament never really caught alight.

He started the next group game, the soggy 0-0 with Scotland, then lost his place through a complicated set of circumstances; a suspension risk, Mason Mount's Covid isolation and Bukayo Saka's breakthrough. Eventually, his tournament was ended by a training-ground injury that ruled him out even of a place on the bench for the final.

And so it is understandable that already, after one peripheral outing against Serbia, there are fears that for English football's player of the year, this European Championship might spiral the same way; a shirt lost to, maybe, Anthony Gordon, an international career still selling itself short.

To ease those fears slightly, it is worth remembering that Foden's second major tournament, the World Cup in Qatar, followed the reverse trajectory: starting out of the side, finishing in it after excellent shows against Wales and Senegal along the way. Fair enough, he would not have made anyone's team of the tournament, but he made an impact. An even better player now, one quiet night in Gelsenkirchen is hardly grounds for a firm verdict that he cannot do the same at these Euros, at the very least.

The frustration is that that is not really enough for the best player in a country with designs on winning the thing; the nagging worry that, 35 caps (and only four goals) into his England career, it does not feel like the Foden of Manchester City is exactly on the cusp of being unlocked.

And really, it is difficult to put your finger on exactly why. The most common theory has seen the old spoilsport Gareth Southgate accused of inhibiting a free spirit. But he has repeatedly stressed the licence Foden has to roam (arguably more than at City) and it was obvious in the opening half-hour against Serbia, when the 24-year-old popped up on all corners of the pitch.

Cesc Fabregas, in his largely excellent BBC analysis, wondered whether Foden might be a bit more Jude Bellingham (yes, and I'll just be a bit more Brad Pitt, I hear you cry) in visibly imposing himself on matches. But the City man is a different type of player, a different physique, a different personality.

In the search for something concrete, others have found comfort in the familiar idea that England's left wing is cursed ground. But Foden regularly excels there for City, scoring six goals in his six most recent starts in the position during the Premier League run-in.

More to the point, where else can he nominally play in this team, with Bellingham central and Saka so consistent in his output on the right?

True, it might not be Foden's very best position, but international football is littered with players adjusting, doing jobs, and doing them well. Half of England's outfield starters against Serbia — Kieran Trippier, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Declan Rice, Bellingham and Foden — were not playing in their most familiar club role of the season just gone. Maybe that is a problem in itself, but it is the reality of building a team when passports dictate the talent pool and managers cannot buy custom fits.

The best players are adaptable and the paradox is that Foden is probably the most versatile of the lot, having had to take work wherever he could get it when trying to break into Pep Guardiola's plans in his teens. Even now, though an almost certain City starter, he is used in positional rotation, a horse for every course, ridden in different ways.

There is enough time left in this tournament, against Denmark on Thursday night and beyond, to believe Foden and Southgate, too, can find a formula that works, too.