England a ‘laughing stock’ thanks to Gareth Southgate; off you go, fella

Editor F365 15 Jul 2024 11:57 AM

Gareth Southgate after losing the Euro 2024 final

The England fall-out continues and Gareth Southgate continues to get it in the neck. Name a training-ground after him…

Send your England mails to theeditor@football365.com

There were Southgate errors
Good morning, like many England fans this morning I am left wondering what if. Gareth needs to take responsibility for not bringing a fit left back and failing to use his squad properly.

The fact we were still experimenting with formations at the start of the competition and the comments about Lalvin Phillips indicate that we were not prepared well enough for this tournament. This falls strictly on the manager.

Thank you Gareth, we will name a training pitch after you or something but you’ve taken this team as far as you can.
Andrew Thornley

…8 years ago I wrote into this site, noting that if England ever won anything, it would be “in spite of Southgate” not because of him. If I remember rightly, I was roundly castigated.

Now, £40m (to Gareth) later and after 8 years of Sufferball, here we are…

It’s been painfully obvious throughout, but there’s no joy in this. He’s f#cked it up repeatedly, and England (as ever) are a laughing stock.

Give him his participation medal, his “well-deserved” knighthood…but for the love of god, please go, and don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
Matthew (ITFC)

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I actually believed for a second…
Oh no, indeed the Spanish were quite secure, no lulling on Gareth’s part.

Our passing game is still truly awful. It’s comically bad watching the missed passes vs the Spanish neat and tidy interplay. The Spanish have 11 Paul Scholes on the pitch every game, we get one ever.

The worrying thing is that no coach can ever fix that. Gareth at least understands we’re bad and so we can just play like Everton with Rooney in their team. Keep it really tight and hope for a bit of individual brilliance, preferably late on.

What is more worrying is that the next 10 coaches will probably believe the hype and try to play attacking football and we’ll go back to failing at the group stage/QF.

I see another 30 years of hurt coming our way til the English players can actually pass it to each other without relying on De Bruyne in between.

I try to dampen the despair with looking at the British Olympic team and Tour de France, there we have found success after years of desperation, but perhaps with those money and individual brilliance will take you further.

Maybe it’s the women’s football team we should take inspiration from, but again this could just happen to be that the English decided to invest more in the women’s team compared to other nations.

It feels like this is as good as it gets. I hope I’m wrong.
Ian, LFC, Belgium

Football is a simple game
As another day dawns on another English disappointment and the mouths will be wagging with all kinds of explanations they couldn’t point out yesterday, why not listen to the one Englishman who actually mastered European football.

In the words of Bob Paisley (winner of three European cups in 9 years – that’s Champions leagues for the kids)

“Football is a simple game, messed up by managers and players. Get the ball. Pass the ball. Keep the ball. But if you overcomplicate it you’re going to meet yourself coming back.”

Think that about sums it up. England will keep on meeting themselves coming back until the penny drops someday.
Dave LFC

Southgate is Tim Henman
When England were knocked out of the last World Cup and Southgate’s backers were saying he’s the most successful England manager since Ramsey, I said that was like saying in 2004 that Tim Henman is the most successful British tennis player since Fred Perry. The trophy cabinet remains empty and where do England go from here?

This Euros was the “no excuses”/”must win” tournament but Southgate’s England are nearly men once again. Southgate (like Gary Neville’s best mate at Number 10) has lucked into an incredibly privileged position, by default, and I can see him staying on because there is no obvious alternative to him.
Matthew

Some pretty sensible thoughts on England
Firstly, well done to the England squad and to the manager. Two finals is definitely respectable, and as tight as it’s been, there weren’t any results where it felt like a mugging or unfair that England progressed. Unlike Russia 2018 there’s been good open-play goals; good moves or pieces of individual skill.

Secondly, well done to F365 for your coverage and articles. As the mailbox has proved, us fans are maniacs and our opinions are wildly different. At any one point one of us is going to say you’re myopic. For everyone lamenting the absence of players who’ve never bloody done anything for England (Maddison, Grealish, …) or those claiming it’s bonkers that untested youth prospects aren’t thrown in from the off (Wharton and Mainoo), there are the sorry apologists for players long since past it (Dier, Kane, …), and that’s compounded by those perpetually unwilling to grant Southgate any credit whatsoever. A difficult line and whatever you do, one of us will complain. (But I still think you were gaslighting in those early articles about Kane playing ‘up front’).

As for the final, it doesn’t seem to hurt as much as the Italy final; Probably because at the time, and in hindsight with ever increasing clarity, that Italy side was really not very good and England could have beaten them. Where as all knew ahead of this that Spain were better. Actually what we got was a fairly unworried first half, and the second half was almost evenly split between an outright battering, a period of unexpected English opportunity, and then finally a period of cup-final-sparring. England lost but that was actually pretty good fun.

Any argument for or against Gareth Southgate only contains half the data. You don’t know if sacking him is a good or bad thing until you know whom comes in afterwards. Potter, Howe or Dyche would be odd but potentially enjoyable, but I’d hate to see the FA pish away all the cultural gains Southgate has built by giving the role to a failed nepotistic luvvie, or an ungracious whinger, or someone who’d view it as a short term gig en route to somewhere better.

I’d also hate to see the role given to someone who engages with Murdoch’s media or SHOUTsport – and have thoroughly enjoyed the disdain to which Gareth has treated those outlets.

As for Kane (and per my earlier mail I know I’m biased) across the two Euro finals Kane has one shot; one touch in the box, and just 58 touches overall. Add the Champions League, and it’s three finals with no offensive output whatsoever; two shots in three games. He demonstrably is not and never will be a goal threat in tight games. All empirical evidence suggests against teams that aren’t San Marino he is a millstone.

A back injury may explain losing possession with every fifth touch, but not meandering out of position, nor that his output mirrored that against Italy where he was fit. An argument that he needs runners doesn’t tally that when he had them, there was still no cohesion, nor that he couldn’t find them against Italy either. Ollie showed more cohesion than Kane managed at any point, in what was collectively less than 90 minutes: Bellingham threaded him through twice, and Palmer once. That has to be what England build their next phase on.

Beyond that change, there are some interesting challenges for England; Right back suddenly becomes a big issue. Walker and Trippier must surely retire. James is apparently made of glass. White is untested and potentially unliked (and has won nowt), and Trent only fosters debate. It will be interesting to see the side that grows out of the ashes of this one. Gordon, Palmer, Bellingham, Saka and Foden; Harvey Elliot and many others not far behind. I hope, whether it’s Southgate or a new person, they experiment, keep the culture that’s currently there, keep Murdoch’s tabloid media at bay, and remain as like-able as 10 of today’s starting 11 are.
Tom G

…This trope that England lost to the first good team they meet kicks off 16 Conclusions. This time it’s they lost to the best team that they meet. For those at the back, it’s KNOCKOUT football. Every team loses to the best team that they meet.

Losing two consecutive finals is not naivety. It’s unprecedented for England. Southgate is a historically successful England manager.

Spain were the best team in the tournament. They deserved to win it and congratulations to them.

There’s a few England players who should be retiring from international football after this. Kane, Trippier and Walker for sure. That’s a new RB, 2nd LB and striker to establish. Add in the relative newbies of Mainoo, Bellingham and Palmer and we are into team rebuild phase.

There’s other names to throw in too, especially Elliot. When Klopp wanted more oomph he was bring on Elliot. But then he wasn’t playing with two holding mids.

Time for Southgate to be promoted to whatever the FA’s equivalent of director of football is. The next England manager should report into him. Southgate should remain to continue his sterling work in shaping the culture of the setup. Southgate should be incredibly proud of his work and England fans thankful.

There are clearly England fans who are either too young or have short memories of how bad it was. I was at Wembley for wally in the brolly and that wasn’t even the worst of it.

The next manager should be a professional manager so that rules out Frank Lampard. Never fight a man with a perm, and never listen to a man pushing Frank Lampard for a football job. They are probably mates with a Redknapp.

Well done England. Good tournament in the end. Bloody painful to watch sometimes but what else is new!
Alex, South London

…And now we are seeing why England will never win anything with our fans the way they are. The confetti hasn’t even fallen and already fans are sharpening the knives. Kane needs to go, Southgate needs to go, Walker is past it, Rice is overhyped, Foden wasn’t good enough.

It’s never about saying to ourselves that maybe the better team won, and if we want to get to their level we have to look at the whole collective rather than thinking a single change in personnel is the quick fix. England have some very good players but so do Spain. England have enough talent to reach a final but so do a lot of teams. I’d rather just admit that we came up short and try to go from there. Southgate will probably be gone and everyone will now believe that England will now become 1970 Brazil somehow, but that’s simply not going to be the case.

I have had more nights of joy under Southgate’s reign than any manager since 96. It’s gutting to lose but we have no divine right to think the talent of players is enough. I’m disappointed but not angry. England have embarrassed themselves too often in my life for me to be angry about losing a final to a talented team.

If Branthwaite, Mainoo, Quansah and Wharton continue to grow then there’s every reason to suggest England will have a good squad for many years, hopefully one that will continue to get to business ends of tournaments. Call it a loser mentality if you want but I’m not a “win or bust” fan. I just want to be proud of the England team. At the moment I am.
Keith, Worthing

What’s England’s style?
It’s largely been a frustrating tournament for England, but I don’t think it’s as simple of picking player performances or manager tactics and saying we should’ve done things differently.

I think it was Confucius to said ‘Man makes the system great, the system doesn’t make man great’ and while this may be true, what England lack is an English system.

Spain, Germany, Italy and a few others have a national style of play. Most teams play this style in their leagues, it’s taught since at junior level, cemented at intermediate level and delivers results at senior professional level. Players are cultivated within this style, and inherently know their roles. France take a different stance which is based on a machine built to generate world stars, and simply be better. England, however, do not have a national style that is something Southgate tried to instigate but it all felt disjointed. A series of stuttering performance led England to the final, driven by the quality of the players but marred by the lack of a cohesive style of play.

The route to success, and one that doesn’t rely on last minute flashes of brilliance, but provides consistent results and trophies, is to define this style of play, strategically teach it to kids from the age of ten, and allow them to learn this over time. Given that clubs have time daily with players to create cohesion but national sides get together every six weeks or so, this style needs to be taught over years and not months until a degree of fluency occurs.

Furthermore, incoming managers must know this style and get the players into it quickly at major tournaments. They add to the system and improve effectiveness based on the generation of players at their disposal, but do not waste time trying to teach a whole new style of player during their tenure.

Good news is England are producing players that do not have to be stuck into old school, unsophisticated formula like the past. There is enough culture in the England talent pool to create something vibrant, strong and effective, and dispose of opposition teams.

Until then, second place is better than we should hope for.
Alex Tovey

Pickford an issue
Watching yet another aimless long goal kick be easily controlled by the Spanish back line, inviting yet more pressure onto England and ceeding any hope of building an attack through the technically gifted midfield made me think that moving on from Pickford is pretty essential for England to go to the next level and look like a modern international team.

Yes he’s a good penalty saver and yes he made some eye catching stops last night – but the most impressive one came directly from an England goal kick that just came straight back at him! Maybe it isn’t the number one reason we lost last night but the lack of control and being constantly under pressure were a major contributor- and Pickford was a key part of that.
Matt, AFC

Wrong game
Maybe this might bring a smile to our English friends, I swear it’s true.

I called over to my in-laws to watch the Euro final. I see the time is nearly 40 minutes gone. Eh?! I check BBC Website but only 7 minutes gone. Why does the tv look funny? My father in law said he found the game on YouTube and put that on. Except it was a live broadcast of a couple of guys playing EA games FIFA, the video game!!

I sorted it out. Dunno who won the Euro video game…

It’s not in the game…
Brian, Spurs, Vancouver

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