Would be happy with Graham Potter or Lee Carsley, for different reasons.
Fair play to Southgate for doing the right thing. He knows he's taken the England team as far as he can. A couple of big missed opportunities to get a trophy - plus some fucking turgid football - have to be held against him but he's definitely left the England side in a better place than he found it.
Despite my issues with him, I think he deserves to be remembered positively, if only for overseeing the period when the country actually got behind the team again. Obviously everyone wanted the team to win during the McClaren, Capello, Hodgson years but I don't feel the country was actually behind the lads? Things were bitter for sure.
But that 2018 World Cup really got the country back into the England team. I think he actually overachieved a bit with the squad he had and having little tactical things to pay attention to, like the Love Train on corners, made it fun to watch. They were eventually beaten by a better side but it felt like the first promising tournament since 1996.
After preferring Euro 2008 for England's absence, I didn't really support England over the next few tournaments. I didn't care when Germany battered them in 2010, I honestly laughed when Italy knocked them out in 2012, and I genuinely can't remember watching their games in the 2014 World Cup, except that 2-1 loss to Uruguay.
But I was in a pub in Media City watching that opening Tunisia game in 2018 and I actually cheered Kane's goal at the end of that game. I don't know what came over me. Since then, parts of the team's progress have genuinely felt a bit exciting under Southgate. For all his faults as a tactician he's a great vibes guy.
And, at the very least, his tenure has finally put the bed the endless mythologising and navel-gazing surrounding Italia 90 and Euro 96, or Beckham's free-kick against Greece. We actually have other moments to dine out on now, like the entire Euros in 2020, Bellingham's overhead, or Watkins' goal against the Netherlands.
I think the time to go was after the Euros in 2021 because he lost that final. But after that 4-0 defeat to Hungary I expected a lot worse than a World Cup QF and being beaten finalists at the next Euros. The football has gotten worse but the atmosphere has stayed consistent. Deserves a nice send off after the Finland game.
