England's Euro 2024 dilemma: Protect a creaky defence or Bazball their way out of trouble?

It is highly unlikely Gareth Southgate would have asked Ben Stokes for advice on that when the England cricket captain dropped by at the football team's Middlesbrough training base, but it is not hard to guess which way he would go.

With Harry Maguire and Luke Shaw – the provisional squad's only specialist left-back – struggling for fitness and their only out-and-out holding midfielder Declan Rice arguably showing his best form in more advanced roles over the last 18 months there is a case for saying the Three Lions should play more cautiously in Germany to protect them.

On the other hand, when you have Harry Kane, Phil Foden, Bukayo Saka, Cole Palmer, Jack Grealish, Anthony Gordon, Jarrod Bowen, James Maddison, Eberechi Eze, Ivan Toney and Ollie Watkins, there must be a strong temptation to "Bazball" it and attack, attack, attack.

England's European Championship warm-up started at home to Bosnia Herzegovina on Monday, but it might not be until the knockout stages until we really know which way manager Southgate will go.

His image is of a cautious manager, loyal to a fault to his experienced players, never taking off the handbrake.

Stokes and his England Test team have the opposite image – adventurous to the point of recklessness in the evangelical pursuit of entertainment. If he were a football manager, he would not be Kevin Keegan, more Ossie Ardilles with his "famous five" attacking line-up at Tottenham Hotspur, Southgate a cagier version of George Graham at Leeds United.

As ever, the caricatures are exaggerated.

All-rounder Stokes, who plays his Hundred cricket for the Headingley-based franchise, is probably the England batsman most inclined to lay a platform before cutting loose, his bold tactics not always as kamikaze as they are made out to be.

Southgate has jettisoned Jordan Henderson, Kavlin Phillips, Marcus Rashford and Raheem Sterling from his provisional squad and could shed more loyalists when he cuts 33 to 26 on Friday. The former Middlesbrough defender and manager will never send a team out to attack at all costs but in what many of us suspect will be his last international tournament, the influx of youth could point to a loosening of the tie.

Certainly those in his camp bristle at accusations of boring, boring England.

"Attacking it is something we want to do in this tournament as well," stresses Kieran Tripper, a full-back his manager can and will rely on.

“I would never question the mentality in this group.

“Of course you want to attack every single game but tournament football, you have to be cautious as well.

“But with the talent that we’ve got, it’s frightening, I think it’s there for everyone to see."

Not all of those attacking options will make the plane – such is the competition even Manchester City's Grealish outrageous talent might not make it – but equally important is how the team approaches games.

"Obviously I’m a defender so I don’t want goals going in!" smiles Trippier. “But with the players that we’ve got, they have the freedom to go out and express themselves.

“We want them to go out and do what they do for their clubs when they’re scoring goals, creating assists, beating a man.

“The manager gives all the players the freedom to do that."

Although a lover of sport in general, it is probably fair to say Stokes is more of a rugby league man having seen his late father, Ged, play the game professionally for Workington Town and Whitehaven, but Southgate is shrewd enough to know he could still help his squad.

"He’s one of the few English sportsmen I felt could impact them, make them think," he says. "He’s authentic, he talked brilliantly about getting the right balance of fearlessness but recognising that anybody’s going to have nerves. It’s still making good decisions under pressure.

"He was able to talk to them about some leadership aspects, the culture he’d tried to create. I think that backed up some of the things we’re doing.

"He’s a hugely impressive guy that’s relatable to their age. That was a really good session that worked well for us."

Although not a cricket fan, Trippier agrees.

"You talk about his ups and downs in his career, the challenges he’s had to face and we can relate to that," he says. "We all took so much from it.

"I don’t know a lot about cricket but he was talking about the last over, the super over (in he 2019 World Cup final England won), and he was saying that it doesn’t really happen so they can’t really practice for that. It’s similar to us with penalty shoot-outs, extra-time."

England will not Bazball their way through Germany but a dash of Stokes will do no harm whatsoever to their chances of victory.