England - The Southgate Years

[DavidMarrio]

I mean purely from a PR respective whether you do agree/disagree with the sentencing of Maguire it makes sense to drop him for this round of fixtures as all the attention would be on Maguire and not the actual matches themselves. 

I mean we saw the farce over the Stirling being a twat with Gomez and how Gomez got booed when he came on because how dare he get scratched by Stirling cause his head was gone. 

13 minutes ago, TCO said:

I think there is a question. That World Cup run was great until you look at the actual results. What game in that World Cup did England win that they weren't expected to win comfortably? The Colombia game maybe?

He beat Panama,Tunisia with a last minute winner, Sweden, Colombia on pens and lost to Croatia and Belgium twice. Yes fair play to him for reaching the semis, that is an achievement in itself. However I think England will be limited by him as they're seemingly coming into a golden generation of attacking players. With the squad he has, I would expect them to win the Euro or come very close. We'll see how he gets on.

I do pretty much agree with this. I'm not exactly the most patriotic when it comes to England and the national team but we weren't exactly setting the world on fire during that tournament and we scrapped by a lot of times. The Colombia result was the best result of the tournament for England but a lot of our goals were set pieces and pens 

He's done better than other managers purely because of coming 4th in the World Cup. But if you're going from a statistical point of view Capello has the better win ratio. 

[METALMAN]

If you define "best" by greatest pedigree or managerial talent* you might even argue Capello is the best England have ever had, despite their disappointing 2010 World Cup. 

*Although the figure I'd see as Capello's greatest contender in terms of pedigree or talent would be Don Revie, and he didn't have a great time as England manager either. On a similar note it's slightly interesting that before Graham Taylor every England manager had won a major trophy. Since then domestic appointments, with the exception of Terry Venables, have been less and less accomplished.

Edited August 26, 2020 by metalman

[Bobfoc]

The last time I remember an England managerial appointment being met with almost universal enthusiasm was when Kevin Keegan was brought in. That didn't turn out well.

[Naitch]

52 minutes ago, metalman said:

Since then domestic appointments, with the exception of Terry Venables, have been less and less accomplished.

This begs the question of how many actually decent English managers have actually existed in that time.

Hoddle's greatest achievement was FA Cup runner up with Chelsea, Keegan a second and third tier division winner, McClaren won the League Cup and runners up in the UEFA Cup with Middlebrough, and Hodgson also doing the latter with Fulham. Allardyce had nothing on his side except longevity and Southgate only really had experience with the national setup going for him.

Who else is there? No English manager has won the Premier League and only two (Harry Redknapp & Joe Royle) have won the FA Cup in that time. There's a few more "modern" English League Cup winners but only Steve McClaren has done it since 1996, and he's the only England manager who failed to qualify for a major tournament in my lifetime.

[Gazz]

I finished runner-up in the 2016 U7s Wyrley Tournament

[Colly]

"Keegan won the second division" is a bit dismissive of a man who finished 3rd with that promoted side then went on to finish 2nd. It's not a trophy, but a fair achievement during the Fergie dominated 90s.

We should have had a Scottish England manager...

[METALMAN]

Steve Kean is looking for a new job, I believe.

[Naitch]

2 minutes ago, Colly said:

"Keegan won the second division" is a bit dismissive of a man who finished 3rd with that promoted side then went on to finish 2nd. It's not a trophy, but a fair achievement during the Fergie dominated 90s.

Before my time and not listed on his managerial honours on Wikipedia

[Adam]

You really can only beat what's in front of you. Maybe I'd buy the argument that England not beating world powers means Southgate didn't do that well if not for the fact his predecessor (not counting one-game corrupt twat Allardyce) got us bounced out of the Euros by bloody Iceland.

Southgate is our best manager in at least 15 years not just because he took us to the World Cup Semi-Finals (which is a great achievement no matter how you spin it, something we hadn't done in any of the previous TEN major tournaments) but because he has actually gone the route of blooding young talent, attempting to build a cohesive team rather than a bunch of individuals, largely handled big decisions well and genuinely helped galvanise national support around the team for the first time in God knows how long.

We've also pulled off some pretty handy results against leading nations in Southgate's time in charge, something else which had become increasingly rare under previous managers.

I don't think he should've picked Maguire to be honest but he wanted to show support for his player and that's understandable, especially as his club are literally sticking with him as club captain in the wake of a guilty verdict.

[METALMAN]

6 minutes ago, Adam said:

You really can only beat what's in front of you.

Belgium and Croatia were put in front of him.

 

I would still argue that given the very talented team he had at his disposal, Southgate merely met expectations. Perhaps he even underachieved by failing to dispatch Croatia and really struggling against Colombia. Regardless of his managerial ability, and whether he actually has any, I'd agree with the rest of what you've said: he's conducted himself well at a time when the England national team has been politicised and he's been in a few awkward positions.

[GA!]

It feels like Southgate's strategies on the pitch either go amazingly or go to absolute shit. I don't think there was a middling performance at the World Cup. Don't forget, including the 3rd place play-off, England lost as many games as they won them.

[Adam]

10 minutes ago, metalman said:

Belgium and Croatia were put in front of him.

 

I would still argue that given the very talented team he had at his disposal, Southgate merely met expectations. Perhaps he even underachieved by failing to dispatch Croatia and really struggling against Colombia. Regardless of his managerial ability, and whether he actually has any, I'd agree with the rest of what you've said: he's conducted himself well at a time when the England national team has been politicised and he's been in a few awkward positions.

Glad we can agree on some of it. He did subsequently beat Spain and Croatia to reach the Nations League finals but I accept that is not as big a competition as the World Cup.

In terms of tournament expectations, he far surpassed them at the World Cup. Nobody touted England as contenders and most in England had an unusually low expectation despite the favourable group draw, simply because the team had been in decline for several years and we didn't appear to have as many star players of the highest calibre.

[gunnar hendershow]

As a neutral there's a fair bit of criticism for how Southgate prepared for the Croatia match. There was no beating Belgium, who I believe were it not for a Meunier suspension against France probably would have managed to win the whole tournament. But while the Croatia team was excellent I felt England should have been able to do more against them. 

All told getting any team to the semis in the World Cup is always an accomplishment. And Southgate has created a very cohesive side in a nation that rarely has them for all sorts of reasons I don't think we need to delve into. If he can keep that part going along while also bringing in what appears to be a truly great generation of midfielders and forwards into the English national team then there may be more deep tournament runs in his near future.

[TCO]

8 minutes ago, Adam said:

Glad we can agree on some of it. He did subsequently beat Spain and Croatia to reach the Nations League finals but I accept that is not as big a competition as the World Cup.

In terms of tournament expectations, he far surpassed them at the World Cup. Nobody touted England as contenders and most in England had an unusually low expectation despite the favourable group draw, simply because the team had been in decline for several years and we didn't appear to have as many star players of the highest calibre.

He finished 2nd in his group and won two games that they'd be expected to and were favourite to win before losing to the 2 decent sides they played.

I don't think he surpassed expectations. That's meeting them. He had one of the best strikers in the world and a world class winger too. You can't look at semi-final in isolation. The only commanding performance, apart from Panama where England were comfortable in that tournament was against Sweden. Not to mention all the penalties and set piece goals. It's not like England were playing beautiful football throughout the tournament.

Again, it's good to reach the semi final but everything else needs to be considered. England's squad is only second to France in Europe at the moment IMO. How he performs at the Euros will tell all and I'll be happy to admit I'm wrong if they win it.

[DFF]

We just need Chris Wilder to teach him about overlapping centre backs

[Adam]

23 minutes ago, TCO said:

He finished 2nd in his group and won two games that they'd be expected to and were favourite to win before losing to the 2 decent sides they played.

I don't think he surpassed expectations. That's meeting them. He had one of the best strikers in the world and a world class winger too. You can't look at semi-final in isolation. The only commanding performance, apart from Panama where England were comfortable in that tournament was against Sweden. Not to mention all the penalties and set piece goals. It's not like England were playing beautiful football throughout the tournament.

Again, it's good to reach the semi final but everything else needs to be considered. England's squad is only second to France in Europe at the moment IMO. How he performs at the Euros will tell all and I'll be happy to admit I'm wrong if they win it.

I'm talking about the expectation of the team going into and during the tournament, from a contemporary viewpoint. Because I remember it very well. Usually here in England, expectations for the team are through the roof coming into tournaments, we're always expected by our own fans and media to do well because of all the well known players in the team and often a perceived easy group. For 2018, we had been coming off humiliation at Euro 2016, the embarrassment of Allardyce, Rooney being shunted into retirement and a number of other former high profile, long-standing players (this was the first World Cup without Gerrard, Rooney and Lampard among others) whilst the squad was very young, inexperienced and unheralded. Yes the group draw was favourable but there was still very little expectation that we would actually get far in the tournament.

That expectation was not bolstered amongst England fans at any stage really until the penalty shoot-out win over Colombia, because we did indeed labour to a win over Tunisia and could've beaten Panama with our eyes closed. The Belgium group game was a game between two sets of weakened sides biding their team to the knock-out stages they had already reached, and the Third-Placed Play-Off is a game nobody cares about. Yes, we should have probably beaten Croatia but they are/were a very good side possessing some of Europe's most established top players. Any team containing Modric, Perisic and Mandzukic is going to be tough to overcome, and on another day England would have won. I still think France would have comfortably won a final with England mind, as they did Croatia.

How goals are scored isn't even worth debating, goals are goals and being effective at set pieces is something all teams strive for. That's a cheap way of knocking a team's success in my opinion.

It is so easy to view a tournament through the eyes of hindsight - lord knows English media has done that to death over the years - but the reality is that going into and throughout the 2018 World Cup, nobody really expected England to do well and for once we carried an underdog spirit through the summer regardless of the perceived calibre of our opponents.

[Gazz]

Southgate appears to be a very good man-manager, motivator, and he has been able to instill his footballing and personal philosophies into the players within the squad. However, he's been shown to be tactically naive and unable and/or unwilling to adapt his tactics during matches to counter opposition adaptations.

He'd be an absolutely great assistant manager.

[Rich]

3 minutes ago, Gazz said:

Southgate appears to be a very good man-manager, motivator, and he has been able to instill his footballing and personal philosophies into the players within the squad. However, he's been shown to be tactically naive and unable and/or unwilling to adapt his tactics during matches to counter opposition adaptations.

He'd be an absolutely great assistant manager.

Or he needs a complementary ass man to help him tactically

[The Lusophone]

Getting to a World Cup semi final is surpassing expectations no matter who we played.

Let's not forget the national mood going into the World Cup. The media didn't expect us to do anything significant, the public barely cared, at least in comparison to previous tournaments. Round of 16 and group stage exits in our last two tournaments, and a squad that was certainly considered inferior to the so-called "golden generation" that actually got to the latter stages of tournaments - getting to the semi-finals was not something people thought would happen, regardless of how it did and who we played.

[Gazz]

9 minutes ago, Rich said:

Or he needs a complementary ass man to help him tactically

Everyone needs an ass man.