- Aug 25, 2011
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I have to agree.Oh ffs. Its not a matter of doing anything overly wrong. It's an issue of not doing anything outstandingly right. What big match have England won under Southgate that they weren't expected to? Just how long in the job is he supposed to get off the back of these par performances before someone else gets a go? If he'd done an Alf Ramsey I'd get it, but every added 2-4 years is a huge swathe of time in football terms.
Southgate's done better than fine, but he had the fortune of coming into the job on the cusp of an exceptional generation of talent, such as wasn't available to previous coaches, along with quite favourable draws (prior to this tournament) and basically home advantage two years ago.
International football is not club football. There's a far smaller sample size upon which to judge performance. Give Gareth the benefit of the doubt sure, I'm not saying he's at enormously at fault, but here goes another few years if we stick with him. Pretty much an entire generation of talent was used up on par performances during the Eriksson years. Is Southgate to have the same luxury before someone else gets a go?
International management should be treated somewhat akin to political cycles imo. 2-4 year terms, to be extended only in the event of exceptional achievement (relative to circumstances and squad strength, Southgates accomplishments have not met that standard imo). We needn't be waiting for a non-qualification or group stage knock out before freshening things up imo.
There isn't much signs there that point to things getting even better under Southgate and by that I mean winning.
Speaking to some French players now (not French internationals) and they aren't crazy about Deschamps and agree England should have won but they also state that this French team just find a way to win.
We can't say that about Southgate and England sadly.
There's a lot of convincing performances there and the group is very together but when it comes to the crunch you have to simply find a way.
He's done very well Southgate but the real fine details need a coach/manager (and players) who can win it