Gareth Southgate

[supercity88]

In my lifetime WC qualification groups have gone from 3 teams playing a total of 4 games & less countries to more teams & seedings fixed & play offs ensuring it’s almost impossible not to qualify.

In 74 Poland edged us with Wales 3rd
In 78 Italy edged on goal dif cos they scored more vs Luxembourg
In 82 we qualified & won every group game v France, Romania & Kuwait & rewarded in the next round, group of 3 including Germany & Spain. We drew both & were out with 3 wins & 2 draws.
In 86 we lost to Maradonas Argentina & 90 on pens in the semi to champions Germany.
In 94 we missed out to fantastic Dutch team worth noting that Ajax were European champions in 95.
In 98 Argentina after Beckham red carded.
In 2002, R9, Ronaldinho & Rivaldo put us out.

Any need to go on…….

So for context the European ban affected us & English players were disadvantaged.
The premier league is now the richest league in the world & we have investment in an academy & now win tournaments at all ages.

Qualifying is an absolute certainty now & just in case we struggle we’d get the benefit of play offs.

He got lucky with draws & has massively underperformed with the resources at his disposal & the myth he was successful for going further is flawed when the context is considered.

100%. He's a lovely bloke and I wish him all the best. But he came in with English football in a pretty sorry state having had a generation of good players retire and a lot of filth left to fill in the gaps. 2018 he lost three games despite making the semi finals! You could give him credit for beating the Dutch, but other than that the win over Germany who were pretty shite at the time, in Euro 2020 was his only true scalp. Otherwise we beat who you'd expect England to beat. We played well and edged France in the WC but still fell short, same story as for many England managers.

When push comes to shove we look the same against top opposition as England have consistently done in the past few decades. Technically a lot poorer, tactically a lot less comfortable and mentally a lot weaker. He won some penalty shootouts which gets him a lot of credit. Once seen as a lottery, now people realise there's more to it than that. And I'd argue having the better players from a technical perspective helps. Colombia and Switzerland (twice) we beat and Italy we lost. Prior to that we lost shootouts against Portugal (twice), Argentina, Germany (twice) and whilst we didn't practice them sufficiently and weren't adequately prepared again it's a tougher level of opponent so a higher standard.

The qualifiers are such a great chance to experiment. We didn't have the chance when there were smaller tournaments. Now we do. But Gareth respected the teams too much to dare try it. So he experimented in friendlies where you'd actually want to test your best team to get a measure and some confidence. Or he experimented in the tournament itself!

 

[i kne albert davy]

Peps never going to take it, even if offered. The question is who replaces him? I can’t see any outstanding candidates. Not English ones anyway.

Does he need to be English? If so who? If not, who?

We’ve tried non English ones not exactly been fantastic successes.

 

[remember arthur mann]

Could give it Peter Reid or is it Lee Evans.

 

[RayCTID]

However gets the job it will still be a poisoned chalice. Good luck to whoever throws their hat into the ring, as you`ll need it.

Bait is strong with this one...............

 

[RayCTID]

Sorry but it’s just so funny seeing people who get angry about the FIFA world rankings every time they come out suddenly pretend they actually matter how they sort of (but not actually) help your argument.

Southgate is Englands most successful manager in 50 years, fact.

If you can’t admit that no FA would ever fire their most successful manager in living memory because they *only* achieved the best results in 50 years then perhaps you need to recognise you’ve lost all sense of rationality about Southgate.

Statistics can hide a lot.

 

[RayCTID]

100%. He's a lovely bloke and I wish him all the best. But he came in with English football in a pretty sorry state having had a generation of good players retire and a lot of filth left to fill in the gaps. 2018 he lost three games despite making the semi finals! You could give him credit for beating the Dutch, but other than that the win over Germany who were pretty shite at the time, in Euro 2020 was his only true scalp. Otherwise we beat who you'd expect England to beat. We played well and edged France in the WC but still fell short, same story as for many England managers.

When push comes to shove we look the same against top opposition as England have consistently done in the past few decades. Technically a lot poorer, tactically a lot less comfortable and mentally a lot weaker. He won some penalty shootouts which gets him a lot of credit. Once seen as a lottery, now people realise there's more to it than that. And I'd argue having the better players from a technical perspective helps. Colombia and Switzerland (twice) we beat and Italy we lost. Prior to that we lost shootouts against Portugal (twice), Argentina, Germany (twice) and whilst we didn't practice them sufficiently and weren't adequately prepared again it's a tougher level of opponent so a higher standard.

The qualifiers are such a great chance to experiment. We didn't have the chance when there were smaller tournaments. Now we do. But Gareth respected the teams too much to dare try it. So he experimented in friendlies where you'd actually want to test your best team to get a measure and some confidence. Or he experimented in the tournament itself!

Not significantly better than Hodgson. If Southgate met any of the stronger Footballing nations on a consistant basis he wouldn't have been by a long chalk. 30 seconds away of equalling Hodgson's feat in crashing out against lesser opponents.

 

[Coatigan]

Very disrespectful to many good teams we have beaten, including Switzerland and Holland this tournament.

Don't forget Slovakia too!

 

[mattcity5]

Pretty much perfect @cheekybids so I feel bad doing this, but it's better you just edit your post - 1982 was Czechoslovakia not Romania. We might have played Romania in qualifying for that though, along with Hungary I think.

 

[cheekybids]

Agree with everything you're saying.

In my original post I forgot to list the fact that with the expansion of the number of teams in the finals of the World Cup and Euros, qualification has become a formality for a team like England. (And is the reason teams like Wales and Scotland occasionally qualify; not because they're improving).

So many changes from the break up of Yugoslavia & Soviet Union to money in football.

Worth also noting that I think Paul Rideout was the only England schoolboy who played top level & even he didn’t make a full international when you compare the conveyor belt of talent now.

 

[i kne albert davy]

The FA has to decide which playing style they want to adopt and stick with it.

Well it’s either Peps ball retention dene other sides the ball and wear them down or Klopps hoof ball if we get some pacey forwards :-)