Nice guy,very boring, just like his football, I'm glad he has gone, the Luton manager - Rob Edwardsmight not be a bad choice.
Well he took over from a pint of wine drinking Manager with a 100% win record from one game. England under Mr Southgate proceeded to generally beat who we could expect to beat, and in tournaments lost to Belgium x2, lost to Croatia, lost to Italy, lost to France, and lost to Spain.
He’s changed the atmosphere and culture in the dressing room, made us pull together.Previous players say how they used to sit in groups according to the domestic teams they played for, and didn’t mingle much. It seems a pretty unanimous conclusion that things have improved greatly. We now also believe we should be reaching semi finals and finals, whereas before we didn’t. That’s massive, we just need to take the next step and not only win one, but really believe it. Against Spain it felt like they really believed it, we hoped we would.
Maybe that's debatable, and what's available to any manager at any given time is out of their control. For me, the 2002-06 squad was the best we have had in my lifetime, and we never got to a single semi-final in all that time.
We were a shambles when Southgate took over, he’s turned that around.. he was also the luckiest manager with the routes we had to two finals and one Semi.. Fair play to him for his gracious departure. We now need to move on with a replacement that will go one step further and actually win a trophy..
If City had a manager that was boring, played at times boring football but enabled us to finish 2nd and took us up at least once more whilst I’m still on this plant. I wouldn’t give a jot.
All teams raise their game in any competition usually because it is a one off! And you are right last few minutes on a matter of 2" or less!
But we lost. And England under Gareth Southgate have consistently lost against teams in tournaments who are ranked higher than them e.g Belgium x2, Croatia and France. This time England (fourth) lost versus Spain ranked eighth in the World. Italy should have been beaten by England. That was failure.
We’ve ultimately lost in every tournament since 1966 so every manager since Sir Alf has ‘failed’. (Unless you count the Tournoi de France - which we won under Ericsson)
Depends if reaching two finals and a semi final is failure. We’ve failed to win anything I agree, but to call that record in itself failure is rather harsh imo
Yes, but under LJ Bristol City was up there challenging for a playoff place in successive seasons but never achieved it. That was deemed to be failure. Same with Southgate - lots of challenging but no trophies. Don’t get me wrong I respect Southgate and all he’s done for us, but it’s time for a fresh face in the dugout.
Rankings are important. England's ranking is high, leading to favourable seeding at tournaments. England during Gareth Southgate's leadership have consistently lost against teams of higher ranking and against teams in the top ten. Yes Spain were by far the best team in the tournament. A team fulfilling its potential. England played like a collection of individuals who were not fulfilling their potential. Struggled and bumbled through their group, seconds away from defeat versus Slovakia, performed for thirty minutes v the Netherlands (third in their group), and reverted to form succumbing to Spain.
V them Sklovaks England didn't have a shot on target until Bellingham's goal in the 94th minute. 1 shot in 90 mins against Switzerland. Rubbish dog turd when failing to beat Denmark and Slovenia. Even nice Gary Linker called it ****. Awful awful boring boring football relying on individual moments to get by. That was England. Sooo performance-wise (them final positions achieved) he has done very well, excelled by getting beaten by Italy?? but never 120% no way has Gareth Southgate got the best out of what he has and had available to him and in this tournament players have bombed (Kane/TAA). Is it possible to fail upwards???
In short they finished top of their group, which allowed them to be in the easier side of the draw, beat Slovakia, beat Netherlands and lost in the 86th minute to the team that were the best in the competition by a country mile.
