Southgate has earned right to dodge England abuse
The first third of every season suffers from international coitus interruptus. Just when the league is getting started, it has to keep stopping every four weeks, for two weeks, for tournament qualifiers. It is a far from perfect situation and causes much frustration. Many of us have long argued for all internationals to be played in a three or four-week block at the end of every season, a season that would finish five or six weeks earlier as a result. It would allow for the games to create their own culture and atmosphere. We could look forward to ‘international month’ as A Big Thing.
As it stands, every time an England squad is announced, there is an avalanche of criticism because this player or that hasn’t been picked and these criticisms come with a healthy dose of insults and abuse for manager Gareth Southgate.
To be fair to Gareth he always explains why he’s picked a player and indeed why he’s not. In the case of Mason Greenwood and Jude Bellingham this was a deliberate decision not to overwork two teenagers. An act of rank stupidity if you believe some, or a decision with some degree of vision and thought for player welfare. This is totally ignored or not even considered by critics as they blindly slag off half of the choices
Look at some of the comments under this post:
Confirming your #ThreeLions squad for October! 🙌 pic.twitter.com/nY96EqnmpL
— England (@England) September 30, 2021
There is always criticism that players who are thought fantastic are constantly overlooked. While some of the younger critics probably don’t realise this, it has been going on for at least 50 years when there were furious arguments about Sir Alf Ramsey not picking the likes of Rodney Marsh and Alan Hudson enough, or at all.
There is always confusion around the selection methods as we veer to and fro between ‘picked on form’ to ‘has played well for England in the past’.
I see people suggesting Emile Smith-Rowe should be picked because he’s had a few good games for Arsenal and stupid Southgate is an idiot for not knowing this, even though he is in the Under-21 squad, so hardly ignored.
England too often seems to be a planet around which an extra level and volume of abuse orbits both on and off the pitch.
The argument that players get picked when they move to a big club and don’t get picked when they’re not at a big club is another that’s been around for decades, and there is something in it. Moving to a big club will boost your international chances but for at least understandable reasons. If you move to a club challenging for the title you’re probably playing with better players and have to perform to a higher standard. Not inevitably. But probably.
So the move is seen by the manager as a sign the player is improving and will have to perform at a higher level. The notion that the biggest, most successful clubs will likely have the better players isn’t always true, but you can see the logic.
Arguing for including players who are ‘on form’ is a similarly vague notion. Arguments for the inclusion of Ivan Toney for example are in some ways understandable and if he continues to score a goal every other game, he may well get his chance, but because someone has played okay for four games this season and scored a lot of goals in the second tier last year isn’t a massively convincing argument for inclusion in an England team. It is far from the most outrageous view that he should be given a chance, but you can easily see why he isn’t yet ahead of Ollie Watkins with a season in the top flight under his belt along with 16 goals.
Not picking Toney isn’t a stupid thing for Southgate to do.
That many critics argue for inclusion of players from their own team hardly makes their case any stronger. And anyway, if you were England manager you would trust players who already had a history of playing well for you first and foremost. You’d be mad not to.
If you picked players wholly on form – though form is a nebulous thing that is hard to measure when there are so many variables – you’d likely be picking a radically different squad each time, which in turn, means any team understanding is shattered.
So you get criticised for picking the same old players, but if you don’t and the team plays like strangers, you’ll get it in the neck about that too. You have to have some consistent thinking.
Actually, Southgate has been a radical manager, picking 93 available players for the 64 games up until last month’s Poland match. No-one can accuse him of atrophying the England squad or the England team, quite the reverse. As we documented in the summer, ‘the clamour’ has become a real thing and the clamour is only reduced when the player plays and is nothing special. But Southgate can’t and shouldn’t conduct his business based on noisy people on social media who think he’s ‘an absolute joke’.
Though still being criticised for getting to a final and not winning – some people are never satisfied – we have an England manager who we can be as confident as possible is pursuing a successful selection policy. The rise of Kalvin Phillips (out for this round of games) from new cap to defensive lynchpin in less than a year is proof.
Southgate deserves far more support than he gets from his own fans and far less criticism.
Johnny’s new book ‘Was Football Better In The Old Days?’ is out now
