Gareth Southgate

Dan_F said:
He had Gallagher ready to come on just before the goal. Once again, he was far too late to react. It should have been fairly obvious once getting that goal that you might want to get Bellingham out of midfield and some fresh legs in there and ultimately they were able to play right through the midfield for the winner.
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Shearer said something like "England have more energy and have stopped the Spanish controlling the game", as if they hadn't completely regained control after an iffy minute or two following the equaliser.

Changes should have been made as soon as it was apparent we weren't seeing a proper momentum swing. Instead he sat there for nearly 15 minutes not doing anything, and it ended up being too late.
 
Ah so Gareth has reverted to being no longer the greatest thing since sliced bread :lol:

When you look at the paths he's gotten in knockout tournaments he's gotten extremely luck given the style of football he chooses to play. If they had ended up on the other side they'd have gone at the QF's at the latest.
 
He's the luckiest manager I've ever seen. If England were on the other side of the draw with Spain, France, Portugal and Germany they would've been knocked out by the quarters.
 
Teams that won at least as many games in 90 minutes as England this tournament: Spain, Germany, Netherlands, Turkey, France, Switzerland, Portugal, Austria.

It's just really poor management from Southgate. The progression in this tournament was far too random, and he can count himself lucky that his Euro's will be added in the "reached a final" column, and not in the "dumped out by Slovakia" one.

I've said it before, but the next England manager needs to have some balls. It's clear that Southgate's thinking seems to be, "Well we gotta start the Bundesliga topscorer", "We gotta start the players of the year in England and Spain", etc. But that thinking is just so backwards. He has to play a team that is coherent and can win the game. The only thing he changed was the Trent experiment, which he never should have done in the first place. I would have liked to see an England team with a lot less Foden and Kane, and a lot more Palmer and Watkins.
 
stretford_oslo said:
Of course Southgate gets the blame :lol:
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He changed from 3 at the back, which got us there and we were playing well. To a 4 at the back just for the final, and we couldn't get the ball. I've been defending him this week, but he lost us that final, again.
 
Tom Van Persie said:
He's the luckiest manager I've ever seen. If England were on the other side of the draw with Spain, France, Portugal and Germany they would've been knocked out by the quarters.
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The level of spawn is unprecedented. One Denmark goal against Serbia away from being put into the good half of the draw (and getting bummed). 95th minute wonder goal to not get knocked out in the RO16 by fecking Slovakia (with their first shot on target). Pens to beat Switzerland (first shot on target in the 80th minute, which again of course goes in). Actually played 45 mins of decent football (!) against Holland, and still needed the worst ref decision of the tournament to go his way not to lose that.

Even had Spain's best player get injured halfway through the final ffs. :lol:
 
Tom Van Persie said:
He's the luckiest manager I've ever seen. If England were on the other side of the draw with Spain, France, Portugal and Germany they would've been knocked out by the quarters.
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Yes but that’s down to France and Belgium not finishing top of their groups, Croatia not qualifying in third. I’m up for blaming Southgate for most things but that’s just tournament football. If you win your group, you’ve put yourself in the best position to earn that luck.
 
He's not good enough at the really top level but did the best he could. It's not his fault he's just not good enough. I don't think he could have done any better. I blame the FA. It was obvious that we need a manager a couple of levels above. He's basically McTominay. Tries his best and has some really good traits and can produce moments of class. But he is just not capable of mixing it against the truly elite.
 
V.O. said:
The level of spawn is unprecedented. One Denmark goal against Serbia away from being put into the good half of the draw (and getting bummed). 95th minute wonder goal to not get knocked out in the RO16 by fecking Slovakia (with their first shot on target). Pens to beat Switzerland (first shot on target in the 80th minute, which again of course goes in). Actually played 45 mins of decent football (!) against Holland, and still needed the worst ref decision of the tournament to go his way not to lose that.

Even had Spain's best player get injured halfway through the final ffs. :lol:
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It’s really astonishing to be gifted so much and still feck it up completely.
 
Time for a change. I think he knows it as well, but the FA are scared shitless of having to make a decision.
 
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The 'easy roads to final' arguments are nonsense. Plenty of teams who win tournaments have similar routes and nobody mentions they haven't beat all of the FIFA rankings top 10 getting there.

What matters is the shite football we've played getting there.
 
I feel Southgate does enough to not be sacked but not enough to actually make England a successful team. He's getting tournament results for them but you can't define success by that alone. This England team wouldn't stand out anywhere even though they have stand out players in most positions.
 
If he loves his country as claimed, he should do the right thing by it and accept he’s not the man for the job and is wasting a strong pool of talent with his awful management and cowardice.
 
Malons said:
The 'easy roads to final' arguments are nonsense. Plenty of teams who win tournaments have similar routes and nobody mentions they haven't beat all of the FIFA rankings top 10 getting there.

What matters is the shite football we've played getting there.
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Totally agree. Worst thing is using this tournament to kind of paint a picture of his whole time even though the football in general before this tournament has been fine. He needs to go now because things are stale and it’s run its course.

The easy route stuff is just lazy biased analysis of things, like Switzerland who drew with Germany( Germany got a 92nd minute equaliser) and comprehensively beat Italy were considered easy because people have decided in their head that England only played easy teams
 
If a manager goes into a tournament not knowing his best midfield or formation it's never a good look.

What was the point of all the friendlies if come competition time you still haven't got a plan locked down.
 
Ayush_reddevil said:
Totally agree. Worst thing is using this tournament to kind of paint a picture of his whole time even though the football in general before this tournament has been fine. He needs to go now because things are stale and it’s run its course.

The easy route stuff is just lazy biased analysis of things, like Switzerland who drew with Germany( Germany got a 92nd minute equaliser) and comprehensively beat Italy were considered easy because people have decided in their head that England only played easy teams
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You call it lazy but it's factual. We have had pretty straightforward routes. Relatively speaking.

Without that we'd have been out of this tournament much quicker.

We've had plenty of fortune this timeon top of that. Even last night, the deflection helped Palmers effort.
 
Malons said:
The 'easy roads to final' arguments are nonsense. Plenty of teams who win tournaments have similar routes and nobody mentions they haven't beat all of the FIFA rankings top 10 getting there.

What matters is the shite football we've played getting there.
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The “easy route to the final” argument is not nonsense at all. It provides context for how Southgate even got to the final at all. He was handed an easy route and still made a meal of it before crashing out to the first team he faced that could actually play football.
 
His reign can be split into three parts:

1. From taking over a toxic shambles to the Euros final in 2021, it was overwhelmingly positive.
2. The final exposed him, the fans lost faith and the period from then to the WC QF exit in Qatar felt like treading water.
3. The final 18 months has been a definite regression in terms of clarity of thinking on selection, formation and tactics, and the last six weeks has been painful to watch aside from a few moments and one half against the Dutch.

It’s been a weird ride - two finals after a 55 year wait and yet it ultimately feels like a missed opportunity.
 
Trophy Room said:
Age old argument. The last time an English manager won ANY trophy was Howard Wilkinson in 1991.
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Bobby Robson.

Also (wrt what was discussed above) there are several between Robson and Clough: Paisley and Fagan, obviously. But also Wilkinson and Kendall.

ETA: We're talking about major trophies *, of course, not any trophy (in which case there are several others).

* League/Europe.

ETA 2: If you count the FA Cup as a major trophy up until the mid 90s (which seems a fair cutoff point), you can add:

Lyall, Burkinshaw, Big Ron, Sillett/Curtis, Gould, Venables, Royle.
 
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The levels of luck this bloke has are actually unprecedented. He was handed the easiest set of fixtures imaginable to make the final, yet he still made it such an arduous task. Spain then lose their best player to injury for the second half which handed England a massive advantage.
 
Marwood said:
You call it lazy but it's factual. We have had pretty straightforward routes. Relatively speaking.

Without that we'd have been out of this tournament much quicker.

We've had plenty of fortune this timeon top of that. Even last night, the deflection helped Palmers effort.
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Well that’s not really true though because easy is mostly a function of your perception of the teams rather than factual. There are a lot of teams in Europe who play good structured defensive football and are hard to break down. I already gave the example of how Swiss almost beat Germany & then did beat Italy comprehensively. Slovakia who England played had already beaten Belgium in this competition and Slovenia who everyone trashed in England’s group went out on penalties against Portugal.
People also forget that in most of the competitions England have got the job done compfortably in the group stages and have also qualified easily while a lot of the rest of the European big boys have struggled at times.
Southgate isn’t a great manager and he will never really succeed at club level but bringing down his England record is just hilarious
 
langster said:
Are you being serious? I feel we could have beaten Spain tonight but they were the better side throughout the tournament and worthy winners, but England still could have won if they had deployed better tactics.

Italy however, you're having a laugh. You can't base a team on past achievements. 3 years ago they were an aged side that was slow and so poor they didn't even qualify for the World Cup. This year they showed how poor they were by going out so early. England went 1-0 up and dominated them with attacking football but as soon as they went 1-0 up Southgate got them to sit back and made defensive changes instead of going at them and winning the game. They go 2-1 up and we attack and get the equaliser and lose on penalties, the same as we did 8 years before against Portugal.

Tactics cost us in both tournaments. 100%
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Spain was the best team by far this tournament and yes it was a serious question from me.
 
Overall I think Southgate has to go now because his ideas are slightly stale and the performances in this tournament were absolutely terrible. History though will be kinder to him imo when the next few England managers most likely fail as well.
 
After Bayern and United met in the UCL, Henry asked Kane an interesting question in the post-match interview: "Does it bother you that you can't drop deep as much as you used to for Tottenham?" This was in reference to Tuchel asking Kane to hold his position as a target striker more than he did for his previous club because he needed him to stretch the play during the build up of attacks.

Fast forward to EC 24 and that sounds awfully familiar. Only this time, nobody told him to keep his position. Instead, he followed his natural instincts and came short all the time. The same goes for Bellingham and Foden. That lead to the pretty absurd situation that England looked much better in attack after subbing off one of if not the best player (Kane) for a clearly inferior one (Watkins). Southgate could only make it work "indirectly" by pairing the correct profiles of players together but he was unable to provide tactical instructions that create synergies between his star players. That's not a terrible thing per se, lots of international coaches are handling things like this because it is difficult to drill a system into a team within a few weeks. But in the end, he was neither bold enough to bench some of his stars in order to play cohesively nor did he ask them to move in a way that prevented them from occupying the same spaces all the time.

Rooney recently referenced Guardiola as a cause for the boring games at the EC and he isn't totally off, IMO. In a way, Guardiola is highly risk-averse just like Southgate since he only wants his players to make easy low-risk passes. But Guardiola has a clear plan how players should position themselves to progress the ball through the lines and create chances. Southgate's approach isn't nearly as wholistic as this. Guardiola's teams for instance always make runs inbehind and they have the necessary width. He lets his full backs push high or let them roam into midfield areas so that CMs can attack the box. Gündogan for example had scored 30 league goals in his whole career, then went on to score 29 EPL goals over three seasons because Guardiola asked him to make runs into the box after the full backs pushed into a CM role. Stretching the play and providing a threat inbehind is very important for a possession oriented system and Southgate neither fielded players who try this naturally nor instructed the ones he picked to do it anyway. As a result, England had lots of possession against teams that accepted their greater individual quality but knew they lacked the cohesiveness to constantly break down a low defensive block but were completely dominated the moment they faced a strong team - until Southgate subbed in threat inbehind with Watkins.

I think there would have been multiple ways to fix this, either by making tough decisions and prioritizing natural/instinctive cohesiveness over quality (Watkins for Kane) or, what I would have preferred as an England fan) tactical instructions. You can't turn Kane into an Mbappe but you can ask him to hold his position more. Or if he drops into midfield, Bellingham could have been the ideal player to make runs into the vacated space like he does for Madrid. Foden is also a player that played very vertically not too long ago for City. And you could ask your full backs to push up higher, especially with the recovery speed and athleticism of Walker. That would pin the opponent's defense back and would allow Trent in midfield some time on the ball, not exposing his lack of pressing resistancy.

If you ask me, I think it is a testament to the quality of your players that you made it to the final (again). They get criticized a lot but I don't really saw bad performances by any of them. Nobody constantly fecked up promising situations or made the wrong decisions (at least not overaveragely), they simply didn't get into threatening spaces and that is a clear sign that something with the tactics is wrong. Personally, I wouldn't be disappointed if England sacks Southgate and appoints a competent coach although that would IMO drastically reduce our own chances of winning WC 24 - but seeing this amount of talent being wasted by a coach who simply isn't good enough is frustrating even as a neutral.
 
Ayush_reddevil said:
Well that’s not really true though because easy is mostly a function of your perception of the teams rather than factual. There are a lot of teams in Europe who play good structured defensive football and are hard to break down. I already gave the example of how Swiss almost beat Germany & then did beat Italy comprehensively. Slovakia who England played had already beaten Belgium in this competition and Slovenia who everyone trashed in England’s group went out on penalties against Portugal.
People also forget that in most of the competitions England have got the job done compfortably in the group stages and have also qualified easily while a lot of the rest of the European big boys have struggled at times.
Southgate isn’t a great manager and he will never really succeed at club level but bringing down his England record is just hilarious
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Yeah Slovakia and Switzerland are organised and well drilled. No doubt. I don't think anybody is saying they're rubbish.

But if that's all you have to beat to get to a semi final you've had a relatively easy time of it. Then a pretty average Dutch side in a the semi. I mean they've got Depay up front.

We can't be denying a reality here just to defend one bloke.
 
Had he blamed it on the players yet and promised to shield them in the following sentence?
 
The FA are a mess. It’s the right time for him to go but he’s being allowed to make the decision, it’s a joke.

The best thing that could have happened was us getting into harder side of the draw and being knocked out early by a better side. That would have meant Southgate going. Now we have made another final there is this perception he’s done well.

We had the easiest run of fixtures once again. Even the Dutch were missing their 3 best central midfielders.

His team selection was a joke. Not playing a natural LW all tournament. Using Trippier at LB all tournament. Playing Kane when he wasn’t fit and then admits that after the final. The TAA CM experiment that would only work with a natural left winger getting behind the defence, doesn’t use Gordon. Changing formations part way through a tournament. Players that showed their worth when they came on not being rewarded a start (Palmer in particular). Playing two number 10s with a striker that likes to drop deep. Late subs, particularly the Slovakia game which was frankly mental he left it so late.

This is not the decision making of a competent manager, let along the highest paid international manager in the world!
 
Pexbo said:
The “easy route to the final” argument is not nonsense at all. It provides context for how Southgate even got to the final at all. He was handed an easy route and still made a meal of it before crashing out to the first team he faced that could actually play football.
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Look at Portugals route to final in 2016. Nobody cared. It isn't defending Southgate to point out these arguments only seem to apply when they apply to England
 
Malons said:
Look at Portugals route to final in 2016. Nobody cared. It isn't defending Southgate to point out these arguments only seem to apply when they apply to England
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Which is completely beside the point because Portugal won it.

Southgate once again failed at his first test. If we had a test in any of the previous rounds we would have gone out then. That’s the context.
 
Pexbo said:
Which is completely beside the point because Portugal won it.

Southgate once again failed at his first test. If we had a test in any of the previous rounds we would have gone out then. That’s the context.
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Aye. Basically he's never beaten this allegation, we've all said it time and time again. Hopefully he doesn't get a chance to prove it wrong.
 
Dan_F said:
He had Gallagher ready to come on just before the goal. Once again, he was far too late to react. It should have been fairly obvious once getting that goal that you might want to get Bellingham out of midfield and some fresh legs in there and ultimately they were able to play right through the midfield for the winner.
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100%. This was obvious for at least 10 minutes and unless he made a change the goal was coming, yet all you saw was him on the sidelines talking about it.

It's a rinse and repeat cycle. Against lesser teams we can essentially bully our way through a game by having better players. Once we come up against the good teams, where the manager is worth their weight, he gets tactically out classed from the first whistle and out classed during the game. Happens every time.

I struggle to understand how he can be so behind the curve from what everyone else can see is happening in a game. I'm not sure I have seen a manager so inept with in game management.
 
Malons said:
Look at Portugals route to final in 2016. Nobody cared. It isn't defending Southgate to point out these arguments only seem to apply when they apply to England
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They don't apply to the winners because they got over the line and won the competition. The context of Southgate's failures are that he is basically always beaten by the first good team he comes up against, and in this tournament, he barely scraped by the other teams anyway.

Euro 2024 - Slovakia (ranked 45th), Switzerland (ranked 19th), Netherlands (ranked 7th) - lost to Spain (ranked 8th).
World Cup 2022 - Senegal (ranked 18th) - lost to France (ranked 4th).
Euro 2020 - Germany (ranked 12th), Ukraine (ranked 24th), Denmark (ranked 10th) - lost to Italy (ranked 7th).
World Cup 2018 - Colombia (ranked 17th), Sweden (ranked 21st) - lost to Croatia (ranked 12th).

The only two wins against top 10 teams are Netherlands and Denmark, neither of which were actually that great, and the same applies to the only other decent looking win against Germany.
 
Alex99 said:
They don't apply to the winners because they got over the line and won the competition. The context of Southgate's failures are that he is basically always beaten by the first good team he comes up against, and in this tournament, he barely scraped by the other teams anyway.

Euro 2024 - Slovakia (ranked 45th), Switzerland (ranked 19th), Netherlands (ranked 7th) - lost to Spain (ranked 8th).
World Cup 2022 - Senegal (ranked 18th) - lost to France (ranked 4th).
Euro 2020 - Germany (ranked 12th), Ukraine (ranked 24th), Denmark (ranked 10th) - lost to Italy (ranked 7th).
World Cup 2018 - Colombia (ranked 17th), Sweden (ranked 21st) - lost to Croatia (ranked 12th).

The only two wins against top 10 teams are Netherlands and Denmark, neither of which were actually that great, and the same applies to the only other decent looking win against Germany.
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Meanwhile, in this tournament alone, Spain beat France (2nd), England (5th), Croatia (9th), Italy (10th) and Germany (16th), who despite their relatively low ranking were quite clearly the second best team in the tournament. Twice as many wins against top 10 opposition as England have had in four tournaments combined. England have only been drawn against one top 10 team in the group stages as well (Belgium in 2018, 0-1 loss).

Really drives home just how lucky England have been with their group and knockout draws under Southgate and how deserved Spain's win was this year. England probably wouldn't even have made it out of the group if they'd swapped places with Spain.
 
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