Is Gareth Southgate a shiite England manager?

[Acole9]

His comments on the pool of players he had to pick from were extraordinary, couldn't be any further from the truth. Everything he says and does just seems to be a distraction from the job he's actually doing.

 

[Andrade]

Only France is clearly ahead of England.
Brazil,Portugal and Germany are in the same bracket and Argentina/Spain are a notch below

So the arch Messi hater inadvertently admits that Messi won the World Cup despite having (at best) the fifth strongest squad around him at the tournament. When usually the winner has the best squad or one right up there (France 2018, Germany 2014, Spain 2010, Italy 2006, Brazil 2002....I could go on)

Nice. Now back to hating on Southgate people. My two cents? He's clearly not 'shite', the results show that. But there is something missing at the elite level.

 

[Redlambs]

His comments on the pool of players he had to pick from were extraordinary, couldn't be any further from the truth. Everything he says and does just seems to be a distraction from the job he's actually doing.

Like pretending to think about quitting after the WC...

 

[Andrade]

His comments on the pool of players he had to pick from were extraordinary, couldn't be any further from the truth. Everything he says and does just seems to be a distraction from the job he's actually doing.

I missed this. What did he say?

 

[JoeyJoJoJrShabadoo]

Hes not shite. Hes just not good enough to compete at the highest level. Hes like Ole.

 

[MadDogg]

Southgate has done well in not losing to teams that he really should be beating. Some of your previous managers have utterly messed things up so in that sense it's an improvement.

However he also tends to lose any time he faces someone that he's not expected to beat. Whether that's being outright underdogs or more a 50/50 match. Not only that, but in some of those matches it's seemed that he actively reduced the chances of winning by poor decision making.

Put those things together combined with him being lucky with some of his cup runs (only facing teams that he should be beating until he gets deep into the cup), and you get his time as England manager. Could be worse, could be better.

 

[Jeffthered]

Southgate is the Ole of England managers. He's nice and safe and does a decent job. He has his favorites and nothing is cutting edge. Its all beige. There will always be a split in the fanbase of some thinking that's good enough and others saying its not. The truth is that he's decent but he will only get you so far. The problem with international level is that there is not a pool of next level managers waiting to step up. Would a Pochettino/Nagelsmann take the job? I doubt it.

This.

This England squad should be going out and battering teams. How can Southgate complain about a lack of players?

Klopp, Tuchel, Simeone.. these managers would sort this team out and make them winners, rather than simply 'evolving..' as Soutgate keeps saying at the end of each tournament.

Can you imagine if ETH had these players????

 

[Acole9]

I missed this. What did he say?

https://www.skysports.com/football/...r-cent-of-starters-in-premier-league-eligible

 

[GazTheLegend]

This.

This England squad should be going out and battering teams. How can Southgate complain about a lack of players?

Klopp, Tuchel, Simeone.. these managers would sort this team out and make them winners, rather than simply 'evolving..' as Soutgate keeps saying at the end of each tournament.

Can you imagine if ETH had these players????

Those managers you mention would win trophies with England. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind about that. You could argue they'd win with Spain, Germany and France too, and I'd agree there as well. A case in point being both the France and Italy games Southgate managed: I am utterly convinced that with a bit more positivity in both those games, England go on to win. And by that I mean - substitutions and tactical adjustment. Theres no excuse for not being proactive in extra time back then, or waiting until 5 minutes to go to bring on Rashford. If nothing else, Rashford is a fantastic substitute and whenever he's come on at half time in OUR games he's single handedly obliterated a few teams. You don't just give him 5 minutes and then pretend like that was enough to justify anything the way Southgate has.

 

[Hammondo]

Those managers you mention would win trophies with England. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind about that. You could argue they'd win with Spain, Germany and France too, and I'd agree there as well. A case in point being both the France and Italy games Southgate managed: I am utterly convinced that with a bit more positivity in both those games, England go on to win. And by that I mean - substitutions and tactical adjustment. Theres no excuse for not being proactive in extra time back then, or waiting until 5 minutes to go to bring on Rashford. If nothing else, Rashford is a fantastic substitute and whenever he's come on at half time in OUR games he's single handedly obliterated a few teams. You don't just give him 5 minutes and then pretend like that was enough to justify anything the way Southgate has.

It's been a period of weak international football, with only 1-2 teams being of a good level, and even so England have been out played.

I think a few teams are starting to improve and we will fall behind. I'm not sure if any of those managers would win any trophies.

 

[balaks]

It's been a period of weak international football, with only 1-2 teams being of a good level, and even so England have been out played.

I think a few teams are starting to improve and we will fall behind. I'm not sure if any of those managers would win any trophies.

That is so wrong I can hardly understand how you would think that. The overall standard of teams in international football is so much higher today than it was even 10 years ago - you only need to look at the performances of some of the smaller nations in the recent world cup and so on to see the development.

 

[JulesWinnfield]

Those managers you mention would win trophies with England. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind about that. You could argue they'd win with Spain, Germany and France too, and I'd agree there as well. A case in point being both the France and Italy games Southgate managed: I am utterly convinced that with a bit more positivity in both those games, England go on to win. And by that I mean - substitutions and tactical adjustment. Theres no excuse for not being proactive in extra time back then, or waiting until 5 minutes to go to bring on Rashford. If nothing else, Rashford is a fantastic substitute and whenever he's come on at half time in OUR games he's single handedly obliterated a few teams. You don't just give him 5 minutes and then pretend like that was enough to justify anything the way Southgate has.

The Rashford thing is overstated, one of the subs he did make before Rashford won a penalty which Kane then missed. There's only so much you can do as a manager. People are too revisionist based on these edge moments. If Kane puts away the penalty there's nothing wrong with his changes. Because he missed it, its a massive flaw.

It's like the difference between Scaloni being a heroic manager guiding Argentina to the world cup and everyone saying he massively bottled the final is France missing a one on one in the last minute of extra time....not something he actually had control over but the narrative would have 180'd.

This.

This England squad should be going out and battering teams. How can Southgate complain about a lack of players?

Klopp, Tuchel, Simeone.. these managers would sort this team out and make them winners, rather than simply 'evolving..' as Soutgate keeps saying at the end of each tournament.

Can you imagine if ETH had these players????

England scored 12 goals in 4 games before getting knocked out to France.....do you expect England to win every game 5-0 or something?

Southgate is far from perfect but such is modern online discourse there's no in between, few can acknowledge Southgate has broadly speaking done a good job with England with some flaws relating to his in-game changes. Instead it has to be that, of course, with another manager England would be battering everyone - which doesn't really make sense given the lack of centre back and central midfield options. England have never had the best XI at a tournament, possible ever, but certainly not under Southgate, the idea he's massively underperforming with the squad is odd to say the least.

 

[Andrade]

https://www.skysports.com/football/...r-cent-of-starters-in-premier-league-eligible

Oh right, cheers. This is basically him trying to excuse the fact that he's not very adventurous with his selections and always picks the same people, whatever their form or level of fitness.

 

[BalanceUnAutreJoint]

So the arch Messi hater inadvertently admits that Messi won the World Cup despite having (at best) the fifth strongest squad around him at the tournament. When usually the winner has the best squad or one right up there (France 2018, Germany 2014, Spain 2010, Italy 2006, Brazil 2002....I could go on)

Nice. Now back to hating on Southgate people. My two cents? He's clearly not 'shite', the results show that. But there is something missing at the elite level.

This is what happens when Scaloni is by far the best manager out of these 5 big nations yes.

 

[Hammondo]

That is so wrong I can hardly understand how you would think that. The overall standard of teams in international football is so much higher today than it was even 10 years ago - you only need to look at the performances of some of the smaller nations in the recent world cup and so on to see the development.

Smaller nations are generally better, but at the top it's much worse.

 

[Cloud7]

That is so wrong I can hardly understand how you would think that. The overall standard of teams in international football is so much higher today than it was even 10 years ago - you only need to look at the performances of some of the smaller nations in the recent world cup and so on to see the development.

The smaller nations are better, but they've been helped by a lot of the larger nations being a lot weaker than they were, let's say in WC 2014 or 2018.

Spain are far weaker. Germany are far weaker. Italy can barely qualify for a tournament these days. France are purely an Mbappe based team these days. Netherlands are far weaker. Argentina on paper are probably weaker than they've been in the past. Brazil are weaker with their best players approaching the end of their peak time and the replacements coming up being nowhere near as good. Uruguay were great when Cavani and Suarez were at their peak but they're pretty meh now. Columbia and Chile have gone downhill. Most of the African teams are weaker than their past iterations with the exception of Morocco. Portugal are pretty good these days. Belgium's golden generation are mostly past it.

Of all the usual biggest nations in International football, the only ones who you would say are in a better place now than a decade ago are England and Portugal.

 

[Lee565]

We even have a good defence and goalkeeper now but you could believe otherwise when southgate still picks pickford over ramsdale and pope, it's just nuts that he is still first choice, pickford was at fault for the first France goal in the world cup, he is playing for a relegation team and you don't see any top side looking to sign him whilst ramsdale has been brilliant for top of the table arsenal and pope has been very good for top 4 challenging newcastle


as well still starting Maguire who can't even get a game ahead of shaw as lcb at united I think I trust ten hag judgement and philosophy over England's version of ole where it's all about good vibes, reactive in game management and pretending to be a progressive manager despite the tactics on the pitch completely the opposite.

I would love to see Kyle walker and shaw tried out as our centre back pairing in games against the poorer opposition, they would potentially make a great modern football centre back pairing with their ability their ability on the ball in terms of bring the ball out of defence and passing ability along with the pace they both have allow us to Play a really high line and both have already played in central defensive positions.

 

[Andrade]

This is what happens when Scaloni is by far the best manager out of these 5 big nations yes.

Scaloni is better 'by far' than World Cup winner, double World Cup finalist, Nations League winner, Euros finalist, Champions League runner up (with a French team no less!) and 7 time club trophy winner Didier Deschamps?!

Better 'by far' than Copa America winner and 13 time club trophy winner Tite?!

Better 'by far' than Euros winner, Nations League winner and 5 time club trophy winner Santos?!

Better by far than Champions League winner and 6 time club trophy winner Hansi Flick?!

Better by far than four guys who apart from being very successful, all have about 20 years more coaching experience than Scaloni, who'd done precisely nothing in management before taking over at the AFA?

My word. You don't half talk some shite, lad. He's better 'by far' than Southgate, I'll give you that....

 

[BalanceUnAutreJoint]

Scaloni is better 'by far' than World Cup winner, double World Cup finalist, Nations League winner, Euros finalist, Champions League runner up (with a French team no less!) and 7 time club trophy winner Didier Deschamps?!

Better 'by far' than Copa America winner and 13 time club trophy winner Tite?!

Better 'by far' than Euros winner, Nations League winner and 5 time club trophy winner Santos?!

Better by far than Champions League winner and 6 time club trophy winner Hansi Flick?!

Better by far than four guys who apart from being very successful, all have about 20 years more coaching experience than Scaloni, who'd done precisely nothing in management before taking over at the AFA?

My word. You don't half talk some shite, lad. He's better 'by far' than Southgate, I'll give you that....

You're not going to succeed at trying to pull off the "look at his resumee!!" card for Deschamps with me ... I'm French and I know very well how his teams play or the fact that he only won the WC because he had by far the best squad and that all the success he has with France is down to playing anti-football with a very strong core of players that can counterattack properly.
Deschamps regularly gets outplayed by far weaker sides, we saw it with England,Morocco and Argentina
Even Platini called France out for not deserving to win any of the 3 games I've mentioned.

Tite isn't better than Scaloni no.

Santos? Like seriously? Every single Portuguese fan wanted him out long before the WC ended. He's never had Portugal play good football.

It's also funny that you don't mention how Scaloni already has more international titles than all of them ... WC+Copa while none of these managers have WC+Euro or Copa

I'll give you that Flick is probably better than Scaloni tactically though but his lack of experience at NT lvl really showed through.

 

[Andrade]

You're not going to succeed at trying to pull off the "look at his resumee!!" card for Deschamps with me ... I'm French and I know very well how his teams play or the fact that he only won the WC because he had by far the best squad and that all the success he has with France is down to playing anti-football with a very strong core of players that can counterattack properly.
Deschamps regularly gets outplayed by far weaker sides, we saw it with England,Morocco and Argentina
Even Platini called France out for not deserving to win any of the 3 games I've mentioned.

Tite isn't better than Scaloni no.

Santos? Like seriously? Every single Portuguese fan wanted him out long before the WC ended. He's never had Portugal play good football.

It's also funny that you don't mention how Scaloni already has more international titles than all of them ... WC+Copa while none of these managers have WC+Euro or Copa

I'll give you that Flick is probably better than Scaloni tactically though but his lack of experience at NT lvl really showed through.

Scaloni is also the only one who has Messi, who was 'by far' the best player at that Copa win and 'by far' the best player at that World Cup win. But you don't get that because you are a hater of greatness, sadly.

Edit: By the way, what kind of nonsense reasoning is the bolded? Is Scaloni a better manager than Marcelo Lippi because he has 2 international trophies and Lippi only has one?

 

[SteveCoppellFan]

A very simple question has reached 1900 posts, what does that say ?

 

[Andrade]

The smaller nations are better, but they've been helped by a lot of the larger nations being a lot weaker than they were, let's say in WC 2014 or 2018.

Spain are far weaker. Germany are far weaker. Italy can barely qualify for a tournament these days. France are purely an Mbappe based team these days. Netherlands are far weaker. Argentina on paper are probably weaker than they've been in the past. Brazil are weaker with their best players approaching the end of their peak time and the replacements coming up being nowhere near as good. Uruguay were great when Cavani and Suarez were at their peak but they're pretty meh now. Columbia and Chile have gone downhill. Most of the African teams are weaker than their past iterations with the exception of Morocco. Portugal are pretty good these days. Belgium's golden generation are mostly past it.

Of all the usual biggest nations in International football, the only ones who you would say are in a better place now than a decade ago are England and Portugal.

I wonder if this is actually true though. If a lot of the young players in these current squads go on to have great careers then we may look back at them differently and say 'wow, look at all the players they had in their squads in 2020 or 2022'.

 

[Andrade]

A very simple question has reached 1900 posts, what does that say ?

That saying 'he's quite good but not quite good enough' is not satisfactory for most people.

 

[Pintu]

So the arch Messi hater inadvertently admits that Messi won the World Cup despite having (at best) the fifth strongest squad around him at the tournament. When usually the winner has the best squad or one right up there (France 2018, Germany 2014, Spain 2010, Italy 2006, Brazil 2002....I could go on)

Nice. Now back to hating on Southgate people. My two cents? He's clearly not 'shite', the results show that. But there is something missing at the elite level.

Messi was alongside Mbappé the best player of the WC. But this statement is nowhere near accurate... The WC KO stages showed how much superior Argentina -as a team- was to 3 of the best teams in Europe (Netherlands, Croatia, and France)... France may have more talent in general, but they had too many injuries for that WC. Argentina looked very strong in the midfield with De Paul and Enzo... And above all Argentina still had top top players available to bring from the bench if needed. Argentina's attack was by far the most dangerous of the WC squads. Not only they had Messi. But they had other top players as well. Di Maria's performance in the final was a good example of that. Both Messi and Di Maria are players that make the team even more dangerous than the sum of its individuals.

 

[wangyu]

People always talk about tactics and how good or bad someone is. In my view the difference between winning and losing is character, team attitude/spirit and self confidence. Everybody knew Argentina does not have the most talented squad in the world but many people at the same time gave them the favorites status (including myself) because you could just feel they were going to be very very close. Those players gave the impression they would die for each other and for their flag and it very often makes the difference between winning and losing.

For example England in my eyes lack the self confidence to win internationally. They have talent (they aways have), I also think they have good character and team spirit but not enough self believe. I always have the feeling they will crumble when it matters.

 

[Zen]

Messi was alongside Mbappé the best player of the WC. But this statement is nowhere near accurate... The WC KO stages showed how much superior Argentina -as a team- was to 3 of the best teams in Europe (Netherlands, Croatia, and France)... France may have more talent in general, but they had too many injuries for that WC. Argentina looked very strong in the midfield with De Paul and Enzo... And above all Argentina still had top top players available to bring from the bench if needed. Argentina's attack was by far the most dangerous of the WC squads. Not only they had Messi. But they had other top players as well. Di Maria's performance in the final was a good example of that. Both Messi and Di Maria are players that make the team even more dangerous than the sum of its individuals.

You're confusing tactics with depth of squad there. Tactically, Argentina are superior, because they play to the strength of Messi and also his weakness and his ageing while the unit is totally behind it regardless of who comes in. But the depth of that squad is not superior to that of France, England, Brazil and yeah, probably Germany and maybe Portugal.

They will have to tactically evolve with the Messi retirement, quite drastically too.

 

[BalanceUnAutreJoint]

Scaloni is also the only one who has Messi, who was 'by far' the best player at that Copa win and 'by far' the best player at that World Cup win. But you don't get that because you are a hater of greatness, sadly.

Edit: By the way, what kind of nonsense reasoning is the bolded? Is Scaloni a better manager than Marcelo Lippi because he has 2 international trophies and Lippi only has one?

Uh? I also think Messi was the best player at WC 2022.
Having Messi isn't better than having a top squad from top to bottom top class bench options though.
Scaloni had less to work with than Santos and Flick and FAR LESS to work with than Southgate,Deschamps or Tite.

Why are you bringing up Lippi now? We were comparing managers from the same era that are directly competing against each other at international events.

 

[marktan]

Argentina also had an easy run to the final. Had Brazil not gotten complacent vs Croatia? We could've easily had Brazil Vs France. I think England would've been a tougher opponent than France too (we dominated France but couldn't score due to the useless Southgate).

Team cohesion etc matters but having the right players on the pitch matters too, which Southgate gets wrong again and again. Lost to a crap Italy due to Southgate being too conservative.

Lost to France despite being better due to Southgate taking off our best player in Saka for a past it Sterling, and giving Rashford and Grealish about 2 minutes total. A better manager knows how to make changes to win games. Ours either starts crap lineups, or actively makes changes to hinder our chances.

I do agree with the poster above that the quality of international teams was weak at this world cup. Germany, Italy, Spain, Netherlands etc were poor, hell even Brazil didn't show up. Portugal had a good squad but a terrible manager. Which makes having Southgate in charge even more infuriating, because teams will get better at the next one and our attackers like Kane will start to decline.

 

[Dancfc]

Lost to France despite being better due to Southgate taking off our best player in Saka

Which makes it more maddening when you consider he was kept on for 120 minutes in the Euro final despite being so obviously overwhelmed by the occasion that night.

 

[Andrade]

Uh? I also think Messi was the best player at WC 2022.
Having Messi isn't better than having a top squad from top to bottom top class bench options though.
Scaloni had less to work with than Santos and Flick and FAR LESS to work with than Southgate,Deschamps or Tite.

Why are you bringing up Lippi now? We were comparing managers from the same era that are directly competing against each other at international events.

Yes he had less to work with but he also had arguably the greatest player of all time, which none of the other guys had. That's the whole point.

Saying that Scaloni is a far better manager than the other guys is totally ridiculous, but then you know that.

Anyway, I don't want to distract from the general complaining about Southgate so I will leave you to your delusion bud.

 

[Pintu]

Team cohesion etc matters but having the right players on the pitch matters too, which Southgate gets wrong again and again. Lost to a crap Italy due to Southgate being too conservative.

A crap Italy side that was 30+ games unbeaten... He could have been braver and that would have given Chiesa (pre-injury Chiesa) too much space to run at your defenders.

Southgate's tactical approach was the right one, he needed to play counter-attacking football and have his forwards run at aging Chiellini/Bonucci... It didn't work because England midfielders didn't manage to release those balls into that space for the front 3 to exploit it.

Lost to France despite being better due to Southgate taking off our best player in Saka for a past it Sterling, and giving Rashford and Grealish about 2 minutes total. A better manager knows how to make changes to win games. Ours either starts crap lineups, or actively makes changes to hinder our chances.

But what made England look better than France? They had to chase the game most of the time and France didn't bother creating chances. As soon as England had equalized then France created a few in succession until taking the lead again... They then gifted you a penalty that Kane wasted (Rashford would have scored that pen though).


.

 

[wolvored]

There is a mentality issue with England and has been for decades. Even Cappello said it.
As for Southgate, his best is England. He has proven hes not an elite manager in the Premiership and I think he thinks he will get a top 6 offer when he quits, which wont happen. When he was talking of going to quit a couple of years ago, it wouldnt surprise me if he had feelers out then and no one wanted him, so he stayed.

 

[Josep Dowling]

He’s clearly not shite but I don’t expect him to win a major tournament. We have a good squad compared to other international teams and there is expectation we should be doing more. Personally I think the squad perceived to be better than it actually is. How many of those players are winning trophies for their clubs? There is a lack of serial winners in the team.

He’s done some decent milestones as manager. Reaching a semi final and final. Beating the likes of Germany in a knockout game, winning a penalty shoot out in a major tournament. Now beaten Italy in Italy for the first time in nearly 70 years.

I think back to all the misery of supporting England over the years and he’s done far better than the previous 20 years before him. For that I give him credit. Expectation by the fans is he’s a failure if we don’t win a major tournament. It’s almost like England fans haven’t realised we haven’t won a trophy in over 50 years.

 

[Sassy Colin]

There's always that nagging question, are England doing well because of Southgate, or despite him?

 

[BalanceUnAutreJoint]

There's always that nagging question, are England doing well because of Southgate, or despite him?

Despite.
I mean I can't name a single team England has beaten under Southgate that were better than them on paper.
He does do a decent job at beating weaker competition which isn't always easy but that is not how you win trophies unless you have the absolute best squad like Deschamps does.

 

[marktan]

A crap Italy side that was 30+ games unbeaten... He could have been braver and that would have given Chiesa (pre-injury Chiesa) too much space to run at your defenders.

Southgate's tactical approach was the right one, he needed to play counter-attacking football and have his forwards run at aging Chiellini/Bonucci... It didn't work because England midfielders didn't manage to release those balls into that space for the front 3 to exploit it.


But what made England look better than France? They had to chase the game most of the time and France didn't bother creating chances. As soon as England had equalized then France created a few in succession until taking the lead again... They then gifted you a penalty that Kane wasted (Rashford would have scored that pen though).

Italy did pretty much nothing the whole game and won on penalties. A better manager uses the best squad of attackers England has probably ever had together and attacks the game.

Against France they had more threat than Italy, but we had far better chances, more possession and almost double their shots on target.

What we lacked was finishers. That we trailed France should've added more impetus to Southgates subs. What does he do? Takes off Saka for Sterling. Leaves Foden on who often struggles with his finishing. Gives Grealish and Rashford, a good creator and a good finisher, a few mins at the end. A better manager sees the great game Saka was having, leaves him on. Brings on Rashford around the 65th minute mark to try convert some of the chances we were having. Brings Grealish on for one of the midfielders around the 70th as we were trailing. Pretty standard changes for a decent PL level manager to make. I said all of this as much during the game, but Southgate actively hinders England.

 

[Mr. Robot]

There's always that nagging question, are England doing well because of Southgate, or despite him?

Despite, for sure.

A competent, world class manager beats Italy in that Euros final. Southgate shat the bed.

I've never understood why the FA still persist with the 'has to be English' after their Sven/Capello "experiment". There are so many good managers who aren't British. In fact, most British managers still aren't up to the task at the very highest level in my opinion. Who, apart from Sir Alex, has won the lot in the last few decades? Look around the leagues and world cups/euro championships, not one British manager unless I'm missing someone obvious?

tldr: British managers aren't very good.

 

[Bilbo]

Despite.
I mean I can't name a single team England has beaten under Southgate that were better than them on paper.

Not many do to be fair, and those that do tend to be pretty special

 

[Stadjer]

Despite, for sure.

A competent, world class manager beats Italy in that Euros final. Southgate shat the bed.

I've never understood why the FA still persist with the 'has to be English' after their Sven/Capello "experiment". There are so many good managers who aren't British. In fact, most British managers still aren't up to the task in my opinion.

The Premier league is the best league and it is the English league. However most managers arent English. English managers havent won the CL in 40 years or the Premier League in about 30 years. I suppose English managers just arent that good (anymore) and i guess that is why they dont get hired for the big jobs in club football.

Southgate isnt great either and would not be an option for a big job in club or international football. He has an amazing squad that could very well win something despite Southgate being the manager. France and Brazil are the only other countries that have the same or close to the same amount of quality as England in their squad.

 

[Pintu]

Italy did pretty much nothing the whole game and won on penalties. A better manager uses the best squad of attackers England has probably ever had together and attacks the game.

Maybe you should give him some credit for containing that Italy side during the final and preventing them create chances. Whatever your views of them doesn't change the facts. That Italy side played 37 games without losing any... Their record unbeaten run was stopped later that year against Spain when they played with 10 men since the first half (NL semifinals).

Before Spain did it with 11 vs 10, Southgate came the closest to defeating them. In the following months they lost important players and somehow failed to make the WC, but that was a very different squad to the one that won the Euros and established a new world record.

Against France they had more threat than Italy, but we had far better chances, more possession and almost double their shots on target.

What we lacked was finishers. That we trailed France should've added more impetus to Southgates subs. What does he do? Takes off Saka for Sterling. Leaves Foden on who often struggles with his finishing. Gives Grealish and Rashford, a good creator and a good finisher, a few mins at the end. A better manager sees the great game Saka was having, leaves him on. Brings on Rashford around the 65th minute mark to try convert some of the chances we were having. Brings Grealish on for one of the midfielders around the 70th as we were trailing. Pretty standard changes for a decent PL level manager to make. I said all of this as much during the game, but Southgate actively hinders England.

I agree with the analysis, but can't help thinking it is more complicated than we see it. I said it would have been very risky to play on the front foot against Italy 2021... Against France it would have been times 10 that. They have the fastest players of international football. A balanced approach is needed for these games.

I am not saying he managed those games perfectly. Of course not. But to think some random manager would have had England in 2021 dominate Italy (who had the better midfield and better CBs) with ease or that in 2022 you could have given France more spaces and get away with it is delusional.