I assume the reason England don’t do this more often is the same reason we don’t at Coventry - our back four isn’t competent enough to deal with the opposition going forward. A back three makes that a lot easier to deal with.
Agreed, but then we (city) don't play with wingers. England have some quality wide options that deserve inclusion.
When you play with winger and wing backs you surrender a lot of the middle. Teams can defend the width of the box and we end up with what we have not - backwards, sideways, backwards, sideways etc.
If you don't have adventurous wingbacks then a 4 is fine as you're actually increasing bodies at the back in a lot of situations and particularly if your defensive midfielder slots in.