Southgate obviously played a part in getting us to that semi and final, it’s disgenunious and frankly daft to claim otherwise, but he also played a big old part in us failing to get further in those instances due to his fearful and risk averse strategy to the point where it was damaging.
So what's next for Sir Gareth Southgate?
- Thread starter Dirty Schwein
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England wouldn’t have reached the semi or the final without him. As evidenced by all of the sexier managers they’ve had in the past that can’t hold a candle to him record wise, despite having been blessed with better squads.
Tactics is a tiny part of international management, and it’s idiotically simplistic to ignore that.
But surely tactics play a big part during a match? Playing hoofball against an experienced but ageing team, who had two good CBs and an outstanding GK, especially as the game went to extra time... Then bringing on Sancho and Rashy to take the most highly pressured PKs whilst they've barely warmed up and the final PK being given to a fecking kid... Like... that's bad tactical awareness right?
If tactics don't play a big role in international management then their job title should be something like:
Gareth Southgate: England Men's Team Hype Man.
But again, England wouldn’t have been there without him. Focusing on that game is missing the wood for the trees.
Also, have to laugh at describing Donnarumma as outstanding. Could not be less accurate.
Fingers crossed he stays and gets to the Q/F and the FA extend his contract again.
Once again, people are talking about managers. Sure, he should have done better, but there are many player that are overated and are nowhere good in international football. Players that fans think they are world beaters.
what do you rate about him? Seriously.
Sorry but that’s way too simplified, and not how the World works.
Other ”sexier” managers for instance have been knocked out of tournaments by Ronaldinho and Rivaldo, we’ve been knocked out by an average Croatia side and made a final by beating Denmark.
I mean the Germany win was impressive, we can all give Southgate credit for that, right? And those fixtures could easily have been reversed so it doesn't really matter that it was Denmark in the semi.
Of course it matters, our quarter final was Ukraine ffs.
We’ve had good wins in tournaments against good sides with sexier managers also.
Of course Southgate should get some credit, but the idea “we don’t make a semi or final without him due to past managers” is a nonsensical statement. Kinda like claiming Chelsea don’t get a Chmapions League trophy without Di Matteo.
Teams should play to their strengths, England's strength is in attacking football. Instead Gareth Southgate fields 8 defensive players + usually Mason Mount who is as useful as a bag of chips. His tactics would be more suitable to managing the likes of San Marino.
The good news is he'll be out the door by the end of the year.
The good news is he'll be out the door by the end of the year.
I don’t particularly, I think he’s fine and better than a good few managers in the top two leagues however (including yours).
I think his style is very well suited to international football, he’s very good at being that statesman who puts his head above the parapet and unites his team which is very difficult with the lack of time at internationals and has been the failure of many of the more glamorous England managers.
Or embarrassing themselves in the infamous “EASY” group, followed by the horror show of the Germany game . Or being eliminated by Iceland. Or offering a total of nothing against a poor Italy and a meh Uruguay. Or not even qualifying. Or the many, many penalty defeats to meh Portugal sides.
Who else is he better than in the PL then?
Well Gerrard is a certainty. I’ll not bother mentioning whoever is at Bournemouth at this moment.
Then there’s the Championship which that poster included, and he’d easily be in the upper group down there.
There’s some weird folk on the Caf when it comes to England..
Bobby Robson wasn’t Knighted just for that. Surely you know that though?
Hmm, not sure I agree with a lot of what you've said here. Italy don't have a particularly good squad, yet have a first rate manager in Mancini (crazy that they failed to qualify for the WC, but they've just won the Euros having played excellent, entertaining football - which England fan wouldn't take that?!). Likewise Germany are now managed by Hansi Flick, widely considered to be one of the best in the biz. Is being a good statesman enough when it comes down to the crunch? I remember when Hodgson was initially lauded as England manager for being a multilinguistic 'statesman'. I'm not entirely sure why it's a hallmark of an effective international manager - it's not something I'd associate with the likes of Deschamps or Joachim Low.
I guess this World Cup with Southgate will be illuminating if nothing else. I'd kill to see us play a bit more adventurously. Our strength lies in our attack, after all.
There’s some fairly obvious differences though, Germany have most of their players coming from a singular side, for instance. What are Italy’s odds for the World Cup? France fell apart totally at the Euro’s too being eliminated by a side much worse than both Ukraine and Denmark who Southgate is being ridiculed for beating, all whilst having allegedly one of the greatest players in the world.
Italy didn’t even play particularly different from England at the Euros, all built on a solid defence, main difference being their full backs tucked in during attack whereas England’s provided attacking width. It wasn’t even particularly fun to watch outside of that opening match against the pathetic Turkish side.
Most ludicrous statements I’ve seen on here for ages. The bloke is utterly useless and his negative brand of football is holding this team back.
Better England sides have got nowhere near with better managers.
Explain that one if he’s “utterly useless”
We aren’t talking about different times though are we?
Southgate’s game plan is to be defensively solid and hit teams on the counter attack. We don’t play possession football under him, we don’t play exciting, quick football under him. He insists on playing with 3 central defenders for reasons no one has been able to explain to me. It just doesn’t suit the players we have. His squad selections are questionable, the fact he picks players who are in his good books over form is contradictory to what he said he’d do. He is nothing more than an FA yes man who should never have been given the job in the first place.
I’ll flip the question to you and ask what makes him not useless?
Successful despite winning nothing? That’s also a fact.
Reached as many semi finals and more finals than every England manager post Ramsey combined. Including some of the true greats of management like Fabio Capello and Sir Bobby Robson.
He has done a tremendous job with a quite average squad. Arguably Kane is worldclass and the jury is still out on Bellingham and Grealish. Compared to other countries this is not enough so overall a big round of applause for Southgate.
No deliberations are needed. Absolutely no chance.
I see you like your glasses half empty
By that token then, Ole can be considered a successful manager for us right?
That doesn’t explain why you think wrong though does it?
Maybe not no but I have a small soft spot for him. I thought he was world class at Villa. But you’re probably right
With southgate being risk averse and a love of right backs, would it be worth changing from 3 at the back to 4231 and playing trent alexander on the right wing as a way to solve the lack of supply to kane and can be relied upon to help out defensively down the right flank to satisfy southgate conservative approach
This only makes sense if England actually won something in the last decade like we have. Both statements were factual, you just focused on the negative.
I’d consider him to have been decent, and sacked at around the right time give or take a few weeks (how were we to know his replacement was to be significantly worse) when the wheels came off.
The draw doesn’t matter ? He beat teams we would expect to beat and lost to anyone that was good. He isn’t the best manager England have had since Ramsey. Robson, Venables and Hoddle at least were miles better. I’d question your sanity if you think otherwise. We should’ve won the Euros by virtue of draw and venue yet Southgate couldn’t help himself and cost us.
Woops I thought Germany was the quarter. The point im making is Germany could have easily been the semi and the criticism of him beating only denmark in the semi is probably unwarranted as England beat one of the top sides on route (however the draw could have absolutely been harder I do admit).
However, I won't die on this hill as I don't really care for Southgate.
Donnarumma is a giant and had a great tournament.
So hang on, you said earlier that international football isn't a lot to do with tactics and view you're saying England wouldn't have been in the final without Sir Gareth Southgate... So what's his job then?
I didn’t say his tactics got them there. The general teamwork and togetherness shown by the team is unique to any England team in my lifetime at least. I’ve seen teams with far better players and tactics who just didn’t care for each other and failed horribly. Believe it or not, teamwork is a very important factor in the success of a football team.
Also, Jordan Pickford was miles better than Donnarumma in the Euros even. Being a giant doesn’t make you a great goalkeeper.
The issue with using records at international level is that the landscape has changed drastically, there is a lot more games nowadays and a lot more games against very small nations and litteral amateur players. That's specifically true for the UEFA confederation.
I disagree with the idea that we had far superior squads in the past, it's a load of shite. The 'golden generation' had a good starting XI but was packed with players who were good for their club sides when surrounded by quality from around Europe and South America. They would get found out against any decent opposition because they couldn't control games and sustain possession in the final third of the pitch. Yes, it's fair to blame management a bit for this but they were absolutely fecking awful to watch. except for when Rooney burst onto the scene in that Euros/
Lots of the English academies are producing high quality talent now that are well equipped and suited to play a possession based, more continental game. There is also far more depth than there was before when there were some proper stars and then a load of nothing waiting in the wings. We rarely had players like Foden or Reece James in the past. Our good players would be gung ho Steven Gerrard 'grab the game by the scruff of the neck and pelt one in from 30 yards' or try and play a 40 yard pass for some pace in behind. It is different now, you can't ignore the changes. Southgate is not well equipped to manage this kind of team.
Noone sane is saying this England squad is as good as 98 France, 72 Brazil or whatever other straw man bollocks people come up with. The argument is that England have the players to be competitive while playing in a more 'continental' style than we have seen from previous incarnations of the England team. Just seems blatantly obvious in my book.
The whole weirdness about it here just reminds me of the Ole debates that went ie. 'you don't rate Southgate/Ole therefore you are a deluded and morally defective person.' It'll just end the same way that it did with Ole with the general consensus being that he just wasn't really ever good enough or qualified for what he was doing. All pretty tedious but on we trot I guess.
Lots of the English academies are producing high quality talent now that are well equipped and suited to play a possession based, more continental game. There is also far more depth than there was before when there were some proper stars and then a load of nothing waiting in the wings. We rarely had players like Foden or Reece James in the past. Our good players would be gung ho Steven Gerrard 'grab the game by the scruff of the neck and pelt one in from 30 yards' or try and play a 40 yard pass for some pace in behind. It is different now, you can't ignore the changes. Southgate is not well equipped to manage this kind of team.
Noone sane is saying this England squad is as good as 98 France, 72 Brazil or whatever other straw man bollocks people come up with. The argument is that England have the players to be competitive while playing in a more 'continental' style than we have seen from previous incarnations of the England team. Just seems blatantly obvious in my book.
The whole weirdness about it here just reminds me of the Ole debates that went ie. 'you don't rate Southgate/Ole therefore you are a deluded and morally defective person.' It'll just end the same way that it did with Ole with the general consensus being that he just wasn't really ever good enough or qualified for what he was doing. All pretty tedious but on we trot I guess.
Yeh, I did mention that. They happened to beat England to win the Euros, though. Would you not swap places with them? There's no guarantee of success regardless of the manager, we're talking about international knock out tournaments here, but deriding the likes of Italy and France who are the respective Euro and World Cup holders seems odd to me.
Fair enough. From memory Italy played far more entertaining stuff than England at the Euros, but I might be misremembering.