An hour of Gallagher’s flicks and feints goes a long way for Southgate

As bitty, meandering spring friendlies go this was a quietly fascinating evening at Wembley Stadium. What did we learn? What messages will England take “going forward” from a fortunate 2-1 victory against a dogged Switzerland in a game of weirdly unbound interludes and, at times, a jarringly open England midfield.

For one thing, it turns out an hour of Conor Gallagher goes a long way. This was a hugely instructive first England start, although not perhaps in the way those enjoying Gallagher’s flicks and feints, the basic joy of watching a footballer who hares about like a puppy chasing squirrels, might have hoped.

At times it felt as though the sight of Gallagher romping about in midfield was like a glimpse into some alternate reality, a place where Southgate’s England don’t play like Southgate’s England, where the game becomes chancier, riskier, less compressed.

And really it was all here, the world in grain of sand, the full deep tactical background of Southgate’s England. Flip back over the last six years and the leitmotif of this version of the national team is a struggle between duty and adventure, the triumph of pragmatism and roundhead certainties over cavalier flickers of adventure.

Now and then there have been experiments with a little loosing of the bonds, often abandoned just as quickly as they came. Here it took 60 minutes for Southgate to pull the plug. The frown lines, the crossed arms. This was not the look of a man enjoying a Damascene conversion to the unfettered midfield, to creative freedom, open spaces.

It is a mark of just how set Southgate’s tactics are that a starting central midfield of Gallagher and Jordan Henderson should come across as recklessly bold, the football manager equivalent of wearing