Sven had an outstanding defence and a number of midfielders who didn’t complement each other at all, and not enough up top (he got a fully fit and firing Rooney once, Owen was well past it), but yes he failed imo. Venables and Robson both lost semi finals to the eventual winners on penalties after being the better side. Southgate hasn’t beaten a single really good side in 3 tournaments (1 if we’re generous and count Germany). It’s not as clear cut as you are making out.I don’t think the expectation was much lower under Sven. When you go through the teams he had, you had 8 or so of the best players in Europe in their positions too.
Sven never got us past a quarter final. At least with Southgate we’ve actually reached a final.
no one else managed that
Not venables
Not robson
Not Sven
that’s my point.
And with the squad that we have this year, I expect us to reach the final and play France (because they’re the only other team with a squad a strong as ours)
Anything less has to be seen as a failure
but I’m also not here to be an advocate of Southgate’s either.
Southgate has the best collection of attacking talent in the world at the moment, which no England manager in modern times could say. You’ve just said yourself we should be making the final. He’s been very good at winning games we should win, but so have most England managers. He hasn’t won any genuine heavyweight clashes, he’s just had better draws than his predecessors