Of all the contentious calls made by England coach Gareth Southgate in selecting his squad for the European Championship, none has created more mocking consternation than the selection of a 32-year-old who spent nearly five years in the international wilderness after securing his first cap.
Choosing Lewis Dunk over Everton prospect Jarrad Branthwaite in the centre of defence turned the Brighton & Hove Albion captain into an easy target for his detractors.
You do not have to search far for footage of mistakes made for club and country this season as evidence that Southgate has supposedly lost the plot and that Dunk has replaced Harry Maguire, absent in Germany through injury, as England’s pantomime villain of the moment.
Dunk made his senior international debut in a 3-0 friendly win against the USMNT at Wembley in November 2018, shortly before his 27th birthday, in the early stages of Brighton’s second season in the Premier League.
Dunk challenges the USMNT’s Jorge Villafana (Action Foto Sport/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
He had to wait until September 2023 for his next cap — a man-of-the-match performance in a 3-1 friendly victory for England against Scotland at Hampden Park in a fixture that marked 150 years of rivalry between the neighbouring nations.
In writing that paragraph, it was hard not to envisage the inevitable sneering from Dunk’s critics resonated. It was only Scotland. What about Romelu Lukaku? Dunk must be dreading the possibility of confronting the Belgium centre-forward again in Germany.
Rewind to March and the moment the centre-back miscontrolled a ball down the left flank, allowing Lukaku to double Roma’s lead in what eventually became a 4-0 mauling for Brighton in the first leg of their last-16 tie in the Europa League. It was a horrible night for the skipper in the club’s first campaign in European competition.
Later the same month, lightning struck twice. A similar error by Dunk in similar circumstances for England at Wembley was again pounced on by Lukaku. He crossed this time for Youri Tielemans to head his second goal of a 2-2 friendly draw against Belgium.
An anguished Dunk watches Lukaku score for AS Roma (Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)
That was fuel on the fire. Three days earlier against Brazil, a misplaced header in midfield by Dunk led to Andreas Pereira releasing Vinicius Junior. The sequence ended, via a save by Jordan Pickford, with 17-year-old substitute Endrick scoring a 79th-minute tap-in to inflict a 1-0 defeat on Southgate’s side.
So how on earth, after such a miserable March, has Southgate reached the conclusion that he needs Dunk in his squad for the Euros?
Well, those whipping up the ridicule will not have watched Dunk regularly. Opinions will be forged on those high-profile mistakes alone, or perhaps highlights and the occasional live game on television. The reality for a defender playing for a mid-ranking Premier League club is that the blunders attract far more attention than the competence demonstrated week after week.
According to stats by Opta, Dunk has made only three errors leading to goals across seven seasons in the Premier League at Brighton. That suggests he is hardly an accident waiting to happen.
This will not come as a surprise to Brighton supporters. The irony of his England selection is that it has come at the end of a season when the measly number of slip-ups have been more prevalent than was previously the case. Those Brighton fans are only bemused that Dunk was overlooked by Southgate for so long when he consistently excelled.
That first England cap six years ago arrived when the club were in survival mode under Chris Hughton following promotion from the Championship. Dunk was half of a formidable barrier with Shane Duffy which helped Brighton grind out results against teams who boasted more possession and quality.
Dunk imparts advice to debutant Branthwaite during last week’s win over Bosnia (Marc Atkins/Getty Images)
Dunk has developed and matured since then into a rounded influence, firstly under Graham Potter and then Roberto De Zerbi. He has been the defensive lynchpin of a team playing in a progressive style through the pitch; a side who have finished ninth, sixth and 11th in the past three seasons.
Chest passes back to the goalkeeper inside his own penalty area, sometimes in nervy situations, have become a trademark. That bodes well for the calm authority he routinely displays defending the box.
Another trademark is the occasional raking diagonal pass to the wingers which normally hits the mark, entwined with dependable short-range passing. Only Manchester City midfielder Rodri made more passes in the Premier League than Dunk this season (3,633 to 3,212), an indication of how his manager, De Zerbi, and his team-mates relied upon Dunk with the ball at his feet.
Most of Brighton-born Dunk’s 459 appearances spread over 14 years have been as a left-sided central defender. De Zerbi’s preference for his forensic build-up play was to use Dunk on the right.
Dunk, although right-footed, is comfortable on either side, another factor evidently not taken into consideration by his critics. The same can be said of his quietly commanding leadership qualities and aerial prowess in both penalty areas — both particularly valuable in the absence of Maguire. The latest of Dunk’s 31 goals for Brighton was an equalising header in added time after Branthwaite had given Everton the lead at the Amex Stadium in February.
Dunk converts from the spot against Manchester United in 2023 (Craig Mercer/MB Media/Getty Images)
Dunk, unusually for a central defender, can even be relied upon in a high-pressure situation in a penalty shoot-out, a useful nugget of information for Southgate considering England’s renowned history of failures in major tournaments.
Dunk, with fifth-taker responsibility on his shoulders at 4-4, coolly sent David de Gea the wrong way in a shoot-out Brighton eventually lost 7-6 against Manchester United in the semi-finals of the FA Cup at Wembley 14 months ago.
Dunk could become the first Brighton player to play for England in a tournament since fellow central defender and captain Steve Foster in the 1982 World Cup in Spain — Ben White was in Southgate’s squad for the last European Championship on home soil without enjoying any minutes before joining Arsenal.
Foster featured in a 1-0 win against Kuwait on June 25, which ensured Ron Greenwood’s England topped their group 42 years ago. Coincidentally, England’s closing Group C fixture in Germany is on June 25, against Slovenia, after games against Serbia and Denmark.
His detractors really should not be all that surprised if Dunk is at the heart of another clean-sheet victory that night.
(Top photo: Sebastian Frej/MB Media/Getty Images)
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