I imagine Kane was asked to drop deep in order to draw out Bonucci & Chiellini to create space for the runners but when Italy cottoned on to that Southgate was unable to come up with a Plan B.
I would go further- in my lifetime he would certainly make the top 5, Ramsey has to be first he won the WC, and I can just about recall him as manager, Robson would be 2nd for me, then Venables who should have stayed longer, Gareth would then come into consideration alongside Hoddle and Southgate would probably just nick 4th.
I’d argue he barely has a Plan A to be honest. Said the other day I think he’s the product of fortunate timing. A pretty poor manager (albeit good at creating team chemistry) in charge of a very good group of players. You look at the difference between him and Mancini the other day and you realise why one has won trophies with different teams in different countries and one has managed Middlesbrough. Ideally I’d keep Southgate around in a coaching role as I think he’s good for squad morale but we need a manager who can actually tap into the potential we’ve got and play to its strengths. Not suck the life out of them and rely on one or two rare moments of quality.
Kane seems to work better with Son, so someone needs to be Son in this England team. If that's Sterling then fine, but clearly he isn't at the moment. I suspect that if Sterling was a Spurs player instead of Son you'd get very fed up with him very quickly if he played like he does for England and not pass to Kane. And this isn't just a Southgate thing, Sterling has never provided many assists for England. He was abysmal in his first Euros, a fact of history that people seem to be trying to change after the event.
The Sterling for Man City - minus last season - has generally been very good and that player I’d love at Spurs alongside both Kane and Son. Who here has said Sterling was good at the previous Euros? I’ve already said he wouldn’t have been in my preferred XI at the start of this tournament but I don’t have many complaints about him at the end of it, did he mess up a few times or make poor calls? For sure but he still had a very solid tournament. Kane wasn’t exactly faultless either, missed a couple of chances himself that he’d usually bury for Spurs. All in all though both players were held back by primarily negative tactics. Forward players will often struggle when they don’t get enough service.
It's not just Mancini. He has a very astute back-room with Vialli and Lombardo whom he's known for decades. What impressed me about the Italian team was their ability to adapt from group stage to knock-out, teams parking the bus (Austria), top ranked team (Belgium) and losing Spinazzola, the technically superior Spanish and their false no.9 and then going behind for the first time in the tournament against England. You have to give credit where it's due. And let's not forget that not so long ago Italy were losing as many penalty shoot outs as England. During the 90s they arguably had the best team in the world (Baggio, Maldini, Baresi, etc.) and yet departed 3 world cups via penalties.
Bobby Robson (although I barely remember him) and Terry Venables are the two best England managers I’ve seen in my lifetime. Tbh we haven’t been blessed with good managers. I’d love to see England have a Klopp or Poch manager who have both the tactics and the man management. Seems England managers either have one or the other or neither. I think the World Cup will be Southgate’s last tournament as manager and if he goes far in that then pretty safe to say he will go down as one of the best managers we’ve ever had regardless of his lack of tactics.
I also agree that Sterling had a decent tournament, yes he ran up a few blind alleys and didn't always release the ball early enough, but he was our best player (until the final) at taking the ball at the opposition consistently. Saka was also impressive at times. Mount was the major disappointment for me, he had won me over towards the end of the season with his performances for Chelsea and for England but whilst he was generally tidy enough with the ball he was far too safe and I can't recall him creating much at all bar Hendersons goal from his corner. Rice and Phillips both emerge from the tournament with reputations enhanced, but I still don't know if we always need both. In the first game Phillips got forward well and I hoped that it was shape of things to come, but in the subsequent matches he never quite made the same impact, though he was still effective As for Rice he saved his best for the latter stages and was particularly good in the semi and I was surprised that it was him removed in the final where he was at least trying to move us forward. Overall we had a good tournament, we beat the Germans (in a knockout match), and reached the final, how many of us can recall these things happening (I was 2 last time they occured). Yes once again our side of the draw opened up nicely for us, and we may ever get an easier quarter final than this one ever again, but that is the nature of cup football. I hope that Gareth stays for the world cup he has a good rapport with these players, but I also hope that he has learnt that he will need to just occasionally be a bit bolder with his tactics.
Sterling in the team of the tournament - that’ll go down well with some . Joined by Walker and Maguire. Hojbjerg also makes it after a brilliant tournament for Denmark
Nobody here has said that about Sterling, I didn't mean to give that impression, but I've heard it both on TalkShite and R5L. I wouldn't be surprised if Kane went to Citeh that we are offered Sterling, particularly if they get Grealish too. Otherwise Citeh would have Foden and Grealish who they would play ahead of Sterling, when for England it's the other way around!
Could make a solid argument for either to be fair. For all that England’s defence was a big worry coming into the tournament they were exceptional this tournament. Not a single goal conceded from open play - one from a FK that was dubious on a number of levels, one from pinball in the box after a corner. That level of defensive reliability is what gets you to finals and gives you the chance to win tournaments and Southgate deserves praise for instilling that in the team.
I wouldn’t particularly want him at Spurs as I’d rather money went elsewhere in the squad. He’s undoubtedly better than Lamela, Bergwijn and Lucas but Spurs need to spend money on the defence as a priority this summer.
Southgate got the job by winning the Toulon Tournament with the U21s in 2016. He had a fairly unremarkable group of players too, in my opinion: Pickford, Iorfa, Targett, Chalobah, Chambers, Hause, Watmore (Swift 65), Ward-Prowse (c), Loftus-Cheek (Stephens 90), Redmond, Baker. Pickford is trusted by him because he's been there the whole time. Not sure why his U21 captain (Ward-Prowse) failed to make the cut, though. Probably walks in if/when he moves to a bigger club. I've been consistently critical of areas of his game and I think those areas were exposed in the final. He's done a good job overall though and he's eliminated the fractured dressing room of the past. Imagine if one of the expensive, experienced managers of the so-called Golden Generation had done that.
The issue with Southgate at the moment is that, back in 2018, it looked like he had control of the squad - but since then the team seems to have gone back to being selected by committee that was a problem that was particularly bad in the days of "Golden Generation" where it appeared that the teamsheet was being handed to the coach before matches and he had to go along with it The fact that so many England coaches persisted with the Gerrard/Lampard pivot in spite the wealth of evidence that it didn't work and was nerfing both of them by persisting with it underlines this, as does how the likes of Parker and Carrick were consistently left on the sidelines when in club football any competent manager would have a Parker/Gerrard pivot (or whichever combination you prefer) if they wanted to have a decent chance of keeping a clean sheet once in a while
To me it makes sense that this is the pathway though. International and club management demand different skills from a manager and being good at one does not guarantee success at the other. In the same way that Spurs develop young coaches in our youth setup, it makes sense that England try and do the same. Which part of this team do you think is selected on the same basis as the ‘golden generation’ team was? He’s stayed loyal to Pickford and Sterling and been rewarded with them having strong tournaments, looked likely to have resisted calls to start TAA before injury intervened, didn’t rush Henderson back into a starting position, dropped Foden after a lack of impact, and has used Grealish sparingly (arguably too much so) when so many wanted him to start every game. Southgate seems to be still very much his own man, which I was afraid he was slipping away from before this tournament. I don’t agree with all his calls - I think he relies too much on Mount, who works hard and is intelligent but doesn’t show his qualities in the same way he does at Chelsea, and I’d like to see him continue to integrate the likes of Sancho, Foden and Grealish into the team over the next year (not all at the same time of course). But Southgate remains the opposite of England managers of this century who were terrified of the backlash that would come in the squad and the media if they didn’t find a way to fit certain players in, and too late, found this to be to the detriment of the team. He’s building a team of players who respond to his demands, who have been on a journey together, and who he hopes will continue to step up each time a tournament comes around. England before this felt like 11 players lumped together. This group feel like a team. Long may that continue.
Just wanted to quickly address the crowd trouble at Wembley. Does anyone else find the distinct lack of police rather suspicious and odd? Having been to a ton of games there when we were using it as our home stadium, there were always a load of them around. Vans full were parked up in various locations and you had plenty walking about, as well as mounted officers in some places. Why was a big event like this not vastly more heavily policed than Spurs v ****ing Rochdale or the like?
