Not sacking Southgate pre-World Cup is akin to keeping Boris because there’s a war on…

The Mailbox hasn’t yet finished sticking the knife into Gareth Southgate after England’s shambolic post-season campaign.

Get your views in to theeditor@football365.com…

What Gareth and Boris have in common
I give Ian King’s “let’s get rid of Southgate but not yet because there’s a World Cup coming up” argument about as much credence as I give the “Boris Johnson may be unfit for any high office but let’s not get rid of him now because there’s a war on” line.

It’s a tasteless comparison to make in the sense that the war is utterly appalling, that football doesn’t really matter and that Southgate is an infinitely better person than Johnson. But the basic flaw in both arguments is the same – if you have someone in a senior leadership job who is manifestly unsuitable for it, using the fact of that person having, or being about to have, something particularly important to deal with in that job as a reason not to get rid of them is obvious nonsense.

And I do think Southgate is unsuitable for the England manager job as it is now. He was exactly the person we needed post the Allardyce débâcle, and he did a fantastic job of giving us an England team we could truly be proud of, almost regardless of what happened on the pitch.

We needed someone to come and say “these are just a bunch of nice young lads trying their hardest to win football matches for their country, let’s take our collective boot off their throats, let them go and play and see what happens.” Southgate did that brilliantly and achieved a remarkable amount of success on the pitch at the same time.

But now, thanks partly to Southgate himself, we have a great squad of skilful, grounded players who, under the right coach, could play some really exciting football. Southgate has a superbly compelling vision for how the relationship between England the country and England the football team should be, but he utterly lacks a compelling vision for how England the football team should play. He has his seven defenders thing which occasionally works brilliantly when Rice, Philips, Sterling and Saka all play a blinder together, but more often it’s just dull and predictable. Other than that, it just feels like he’s drawing formations on a whiteboard while blindfolded in the hope that “trying something different” might yield a better result. If we stick with Southgate too much longer, the football team will enter the same vicious cycle the test cricket team entered, with a talented group of players becoming ever more defensive and tentative in a desperate, but counterproductive struggle to try to prevent anything else going wrong.

The guy who wrote in to critique the idea of replacing him with Mourinho was knocking down the strawiest of straw men. We have two really good English coaches in Eddie Howe and Graham Potter who would both be major upgrades on the pure football side. Perhaps Howe wouldn’t leave Newcastle (though I wouldn’t rule it out) but Potter would surely take it.

In an ideal world, Southgate would agree quietly with the FA that his time had come, they’d line up a good, English replacement and, when that was ready to announce, Southgate would leave on his own terms with the dignity and plaudits he so richly deserves.
Tom, In Ger Lund

Ian King: Gareth Southgate and England should part after World Cup as England turns toxic

…Agree with Ian King’s article on Wednesday, it would be both careless and callous to sack Southgate on the eve of a major tournament but there does need to be a contingency plan. To allow four uninspired performances and two bad results taint six years of progress is a very narrow minded view. This is the best England team in my lifetime. Players want to be in camp, they get along, know the system and look, mostly, capable of getting results. Fans do need to calm down. Yes it was a feeble performance and the break in general has been poor but these antics are why so many other countries hate our fans and press.

However Southgate is not without criticism. Firstly selection. No left footed full backs is always a mistake. Even if your first choice is unfit or needing a rest (Chilwell and Shaw) it makes sense to at least pick someone who is a like for like replacement and left footed (Tyrick Mitchell, Ryan Sessegnon, Luke Thomas etc) rather than play right backs or wingers out of position. If your system requires fullbacks pushing on and delivering crosses then they will not get room to cut in on their better foot. Even if the best of the rest of the left back crop is not likely to go to Qatar it is best to be upfront that 2022 has likely come a bit too soon for them but they have a chance to stake claim for next euros and win some caps in the meantime.

In the same manner there appears to be an embarrassment of riches in attacking midfield but no plan on how to put them together. Southgate is clearly very loyal to Steve Holland but perhaps a fresh first team coach could in to implement some tactics that allow a combination of Sterling, Foden, Mount, Saka, Bellingham, Grealish and Sancho et.al. to flourish. Graeme Jones came in for the Euros and Allan Russell for 2018. A fresh coach should be appointed before the next set of Nations League games to allow them time to tweak the system and style.

The FA itself also needs to make contingency plans. For all the excellent work Dan Ashworth did at rebuilding the FA and introducing a philosophy at youth level, the only reason it came to fruition at senior level is because Big Sam drank a pint of wine and allowed his tongue to wag. Southgate was never first choice and the FA need better succession planning should Southgate be dismissed or leave. Given his recent press quotes I suspect the latter is most likely as he seems fed up with the scrutiny and second guessing by both public and media. Part of Southgate’s genius has been taking the pressure off by allowing the media into the camp but only for curated content. They are looking for a story and he is giving them unicorn inflatables and Ed Sheeran concerts. However, this seems to have run its course and the media has reverted to type. I wouldn’t be surprised if he wants a break before maybe becoming DoF at a progressive club in the future.

If Southgate does go who replaces him? The idea of the philosophy is that there should be someone imbued with the plan ready to take over. This would rule out the few British Premier league managers – Gerrard, Howe, Lampard, Potter – and at least one of that list would likely be a disaster. Ideally it would be an age group coach stepping up to work with players they have already coached in the youth teams but has Lee Carsley got enough of a reputation in the media and public to handle the pressure that such an appointment will attract? The only other option is a former age group coach who has gained some respect in the club game. Of other former age group coaches currently managing in the Football League Kevin Betsy has just taken the Crawley job and Paul Simpson is at Carlisle. This – unless Rob Edwards works wonders at Watford – leaves pretty much Steve Cooper in a category of one. Whilst Cooper may well make a good England manager given his record, style and rapport with current players, it is never a good sign if there aren’t many other coaches capable of fulfilling the brief of the role.
Joe, Midlands

Same old England
We give an England manager a Knighthood and OBE for reaching a World Cup semi final and a European Championship final.
We call for his head after losing a few games in a tinpot friendly tournament.
This is why the Scots, Welsh and Irish laugh at us.
Dan, London.

Gareth’s gotta go
Not saying Gareth hasn’t done a good job, he’s given it a good go but now he is firmly pressed against the ceiling. He didn’t exactly have a bad bunch of players did he?

I felt he should have stood down after the euros. I mean who makes that many subs to take penalties?! If he wanted them players in for penalties why didn’t he give them just 15 mins of extra time to get warmed up and jeez who knows they may have just stole it in normal time.

Time to go!
John Greenwood, Brisbane, Australia (Yorkshire born and bread)

…Southgate wishes he was Ole... I’ve been saying (on this site) for ages now that Southgate and this England team have been terrible. I even used a Ferrari analogy. People scoffed at this and said he knew what he was doing. That he’d be a great choice for United manager.

Since the final against Croatia in 2018, it’s been the same awful no direction football, all the while wasting the potential the squads he has had at his disposal since then.

Ole at least had some very exciting games and wins. He did have a style, and it got United to second. Looking back, that was some achievement getting what he did out of those players. They could sit back and spring on the counter with great effect.

England had big wins when it meant not, and against anything resembling a challenge they faltered, or squeezed by.

Was Ole a Pep or Klopp, sadly no. Was his football better than Englands? In my opinion it absolutely was, and with hindsight of 2021, he had much worse players than Southgate.
Calvino (Ole over Southgate any day)

…Would the players have been tired, and would Southgate have been full of excuses if the World Cup had been held in June as usual?
Matthew, Belfast

…Gareth Southgate, the football equivalent of a beige suit, it’s bloody funny if someone else has one (David Pleat 1982) but you don’t want one yourself.
Mark

…The reason England didn’t do well in the Nations League matches was because we weren’t playing San Marino or The Faroe Islands. We can crush that lot.
Seriously though what a depressingly boring sh*t show of matches to watch that was. Very little creativity or spark and sure one could argue that the lads are knackered but f*ck me that’s what Lucozade is for. I’ve shown more energy at work after a solid night on the piss then many of these players did. I don’t think that was a lack of Lucozade on their part but more a lack of spirit and motivation and that comes down to Southgate. Boring is as boring does.
Jason G, Montreal Canada (hard to find Lucozade)

Who next if Gareth goes?
As a victim of the Irish football fans paradox of wanting the English football team to do well yet simultaneously fail, a sort of Schrodingers football score, I had a brief email drafted outlining how the FA should consider appointing Arsene Wenger when Southgate gets mutually consented to ensure the best use of this current crop of brilliant English footballers.

Then I read it back to myself and realised I’d said absolutely nothing that hasn’t been said before about why Wenger would suit the role and the counter arguments as to why he would not, that is to assume he’d even accept the job.

So to avoid that self licking ice cream of a discussion, à la Sneijder to Utd, it was best to drop the idea of Wenger taking the post completely and simply put it to the Mailbox.

So who does best suit the job given the players at their disposal and why?
Are there any suggestions beyond Eddie Howe?
Eoin (does ‘Arry still count as an option) Ireland

Time for Nev
Genuinely thought Phil Neville was going to move up a few ladder places after that result. Couldn’t be a worse option than playing right backs at left back.
Edward Canhands (Massive Reece James fan, just not on the left)

Owning it
4 matches, an exciting (maybe a bit tired) squad; multiple tactics; lots of rotation; zero wins, zero goals scored in open play in over 6 hours of competitive football; and finally being humped at home by a side 35 places lower than us in the ratings.

So who’s to blame?

Obviously, the players. Maybe one of the most valuable squads ever assembled, certainly by England – multiple players of the year, young superstars in pretty much every position, some of the hottest properties in Europe on display (Foden, Saka, Bellingham, Mount, James, Rice, Phillips, Kane, Sterling, Grealish, not to mention Tomori who just won Serie A with Milan). Obviously overhyped, and clearly not up to the job, even in the face of the best managers in club football picking them every week.

Maybe tiredness is just an English trait at the end of a long season – albeit with Trippier, Stones, James, Grealish and a few others partially ruining that narrative.

Surely, it couldn’t be the manager?? Solid centre back for England, nice chap with nice waistcoats. Took Boro down; somehow lucked into getting the England U21’s job and won nothing; right man, right place as Big Sam imploded; a guy who has won one competitive game against top opposition in 6 years in charge of England, and who single-handedly destroyed our dreams with his abysmal in game management of both Croatia and Italy when it really mattered and when we were winning both games. No way it can be him.

I’ll go with tired…and maybe UEFA…it’s always their fault you know.
Matthew (ITFC)

…I feel the non-inclusion of Maddison, Rashford and maybe Smith-Rowe from these Nations League matches robbed England of creativity. At least they would have been outsiders hoping to be on the plane to Qatar. The backups to Kane didn’t do themselves any good also. This could have been an ideal situation to try out Wilson, Watkins and the rest. It seems only Kane can score in this England setup. Sterling was also poor and I am not sure Bowen did his chances any good.

Maddison would have played closer to the striker and this would have moved the team forward. I just hope Gareth sees this. The midfield was very weak. They didn’t create enough and didn’t protect the defence well.

As for the defence, a 4-0 loss at home would reflect very badly on them but this experiment with RBs playing LBs must stop. Mitchell would have played better there.

All in all, a terrible few days for the 3 Lions but no premature decisions are to be made. There are some mitigating factors and I expect a rejig of the attacking part of the tactics. England playing counter-attacking football against Hungary at home iwon’t fill many fans with hope for Qatar.
Francis Redheart, Lagos.

World Cup hosts
AY both makes a very good point about no countries should be banned from hosting a world cup and also a very poor point because of course there should not be a world cup in Qatar.

Firstly, a European winter world cup should not be off the cards. Who are we, Europeans, to say that a world cup should only be played in our off season? A world cup at Christmas because the tournament is held in the southern hemi-sphere for example is perfectly acceptable.

But of course, there are places on the planet where world cups should not be held. Your own example was space, so well done. Other examples include at the bottom of the ocean because the players will drown or on top of a mountain in Chile because the players will asphyxiate or in the middle of a sodding desert AY! You use the winter Olympics as an example by AY, you can’t ice skate in a desert. Winter Olympics are held in winter for the right conditions to play to the sports. You don’t host the summer Olympics in winter in Calgary AY. Imagine the sailors plonked in their boats on a frozen lake!

There is quite simply no way a FIFA executive comes out of the Qatar presentation without being bribed and says that that’s an appropriate place for a world cup. Especially as the half-baked plan to move to winter came after the tournament was awarded. If, by accidental fortuity and historical anomaly, your country is in a place on the planet where it is not a suitable place to play football, then you should not be in scope for hosting a world cup.

If by design of the powers that be, your country is a monster then you should not be in scope for hosting a world cup. Unfortunately, that does rule out the UK at the moment too.

We all know that the factors for choosing the world cup are 1) Will the group games be on during the working day so we can get a “client meeting” in 2) Are there no vuvuzelas 3) can the fans get a beer in, specifically Heineken 4) can the players play the game without risking lasting injuries or death.
Alex, South London

…Seems that it doesn’t matter if you are fan or a league president in football, you can make daft statements.

Ay says ‘why Qatar’ is a stupid question because they, like any other country should be able to host the World Cup. If they were just ‘any’ old country, yes. But when it’s a country with no discernible football heritage, only a recent and very third tier league of, hold on, 12 teams, no existing stadia to host a major game prior to winning the WC, many of which will be dismantled and shuffled off after and, let’s face it, won the WC on the basis it wouldn’t be held in winter and was clearly fraudulently won, why shouldn’t the hold it. Like a reverse Monty Python and ‘what have the Romans ever done for us’ sketch.

In the meantime Tebas, La Liga President is ‘suing’ PSG and City over the signing of Mbappe and Haaland respectively. Now, most people have to no love for the state sponsored teams but it’s a little rich to complain about not signing star players when Spain’s tax laws provided favourable conditions for sports stars until recently, as it allowed top teams like Real Madrid and Barcelona to negotiate their own broadcast deals. And it’s not like there haven’t been other iffy deals like the way Real Madrid wrote off it’s complete debt after selling a portion of its training ground to Madrid, paying off the a debt that bought the galacticos that won many league and champions league titles. It’s like saying we used different forms of financial doping to become the top league in the late 90’s and early 200’s but now that the game has changed, we want a fair field.

Both are trying to sound balanced and sensible but end up sounding hypocritical.

I can think of many countries in the world, without the huge wealth of a clearly non ‘soccer’ country that could/should hold the World Cup, just as I can think of many leagues and teams that could complain about the new financial doping, but Qatar and all Liga are neither of them.
Paul McDevitt

Glazernomics
Tell me if this sounds familiar: you’ve been working in a reasonably successful team, but a few of your colleagues get offers elsewhere, and the execs can’t match the salaries, so they head off to pastures new. And you put together job specs, and get ready to start recruiting, but then the execs come back and say you know what, this is a great opportunity for the remaining teammates to really step up, grow into more responsibility and drive value.

So you start working a bit harder, longer hours and start burning out. The execs are happy to have a lowered cost, with no immediate impact on them. And we know where this is heading, the dominoes will fall quickly and the execs will be left with a mess when you and everyone leaves.

That situation is Manchester United right now. It’s not any different to jobs everywhere – the goal is to squeeze more out of resources because hiring is expensive and the idea is the marginal gains don’t justify it.

If I were a cynical advisor, this actually makes plenty of sense to the Glazers. Bleed the club for 1 or 2 more seasons – maximise cash by cutting wages and not investing in new players and then when the club is on the brink of the dominoes falling, sell and it’s someone else’s problem.
Ryan, Bermuda (seven players out and zero players in, not worried at all)

Man Utd in the market
Reading one arsenal fan’s frustration about the clubs like of activity in the transfer market i decided to think over the activity of my club Man Utd in the transfer market until now and i came to a conclusion that all this noise about club being run in a better way now by making changes at a structural level , having a long term plan in place,hiring a promising manager is all just a big smokescreen. In reality nothing has really changed.
This is a club which is in need of a rebuild which is so big that it will probably take 3 to 4 transfer windows to bring the squad closer to the elite level where pool and city are operating right now provided every step taken turns out to be right. One wrong decision will set the club further back
And for stakes that are so high what on earth are we doing till now????? Likes of pool city spurs real barca bayern have all strengthened. Meanwhile we can not even get de jong to commit to us whose club wants him gone asap. Forget that we appointed ten hag. Having him in the dugout meant that we should have signed timber and anthony already without much delay but there is nothing happening on that front.
We managed to offload the likes of pogba cavani mata lingard from the squad but that happened because the players themselves wanted to leave. Meanwhile we are not doing anything to get rid of the other deadwood. the likes of baily jones martial, etc are still there.
I am resigned to accept that we are not going to sign that many players. A midfielder a centre back and a right back is max what we are going to get but I just hope that we get these signings done before the pre season starts and we get rid of the the deadwood before the pre season starts. We have enough talent in our youth ranks to fill up the first team squad and i would love to see the likes of hannibal garnacho etc being given regular opportunities.
But the way things are going am pretty sure that de jong will snub us and we will end up signing a sub par alternative. Timber will snub us and go to bayern or something. A am not even sure which right back we are even linked with so that is a dead end.eventually we will end up keeping martial baily for another season because we did not sign anyone else. Till the glazers are there things are not going to change.
Swapnil, mumbai (man utd)
Ps. Mr elon musk if you are going to back out of the twitter deal please please please spend some of that money to buy man utd from glazers.