Gareth Southgate

I wouldn't give him the job if he was the last Englishman with a coaching badge.

He's beaten a Conference side in Malta and a Championship (at best) side in Scotland. The performance against Slovenia was the worst I have ever seen from an England. Absolutely diabolical. There is no way he has done enough to earn the job. Let's get the Spain game out of the way and start looking for a proper manager.

 

Shows the sad state we have gotten into if that passionless failure gets the job.

 

Too many foreign players and too many foreign managers, simple as.

 

But he's arguably the best choice of English managers so what does that say about our national game.

 

Keith Hill?

 

Why? He's done **** all. Hecky has done more!

 

I don't see why he's the best choice, he's done less than Eddie Howe, less than Steve Bruce, less than Alan Pardew, less than a good few more. Southgate is likeable in that he speaks relatively well and seems a decent bloke, but his club experience extends to being relgated with Middlesbrough and despite good results in qualifying, he bombed completely at the last Under 21 Championships. The cynic in me suggests it isn't difficult to get results with the best young players in England, especially against smaller footballing nations who may have a decent first team but less strength in depth and youth. Stuart Pearce managed decent results at that level and now Aidy Boothroyd is doing ok. Are/were they candidates on the strength of that? To me, no. But anyway, he will almost certainly get the job, providing he avoids a humilating defeat against Spain. So far under him we have looked every bit as average as we have under Hodgson, Big Sam for the one game and Capello beforehand. But knowing the FA, that wont be an issue and we will carry on talking about future strategies and plans without any tangible evidence of progress.

To be honest though, does it really matter? Our current team showed what they were all about in France. Distinctly average and unable to ever raise their game when it truly matters. Go without a manager and we'd still win this group and qualify. But when it matters in Russia, we'll do our usual trick of trying to copy every other team that has done well recently, realise we aren't equipped to do so and then be eliminated. Until we get our own identity sorted and try to exploit our own strengths, within a broader strategy of play with a settled formation, with players picked to fit within that formation rather than on reputation, we'll continually fail. I can already hear the post-exit BBC Radio 5Live broadcast wth Waddle et al ripping into the set up in 18 months time.

 

Nothing at all to do with that. If Jordan Henderson is the best English midfielder, he'd still be the best English midfielder even if the league was awash with English players. If you stick a bunch of English championship players in the premier league to make the quota up all you're doing is weakening the league so instead of Henderson coming up against Pogba (possibly bad example), Hazard and whoeverthe****else, he's coming up against players who currently aren't good enough.

It doesn't matter who the English manager is at the moment. The players are not good enough. Personally I'd give it to a Beckham or a Shearer, for my money managing a league club is nothing like managing a national side. Might get them motivated.

 

I don't think any English manager deserves the job right now.

I would've given it Guus Hiddink until after the World Cup & sent out a message to the young English coaches to do well in the next 2 years to try & be in pole position to take over

 

The FA probably couldn't name a single manager outside of the premier league. From what I've heard he is well liked and respected by the players, many of whom played for him in the U21s and he knows the set up well. He may not be perfect but if we're staying with an Englishman then who else?

We've tried club manager after club manager and all have been an abject failure.

 

He knows the setup well is a good a reason as any to not bother! He's probably a big fan of the White Elephant AKA St George's Park and the winning doesn't matter mentality that springs from there.

 

The winning doesn't matter mentality seems to start at school so is well engrained in the culture of a lot of our young players these days.

I don't know if he'll do a good job and the way I feel about international football I don't really care but at the same time I don't think any of the names mentioned in this post (Hecky aside) would do any better.

Maybe we just have to face the reality that we're not actually as good as we'd like us to be so whoever we appoint is going to struggle.

 

Why do the media and joe publuc believe that the england job is equivalent to a Guardiola or a Mancini? In the grand scheme o things England are Barnsley, mid table Championship and punching at that. So a Southgate or a Boothroyd or a Hecky, god forbid is as good as they should expect.

 

I don't disagree but given the Premier League is hyped as the best in the world it is automatically taken to equal England being any good.

Another poster hit it right...we don't have an identity and instead we try and copy the latest fad. We try and play like Barca/Spain and can't because our players aren't good enough.

 

England have had missed opportunities to do well and our biggest failure despite a so called "golden era" of players Cole Ferdinand Terry Beckham Gerrard Scholes Lampard Rooney Owen for example was probably under England's highest ever profiled manage in Erriksen.

 

Good post. We've simply not got any world class these days.

I've said it recently that we've not got a single player who'd get in the Spanish team & they've flopped recently.

The only way we can expect to achieve at a major competition is by spoiling & playing with an avoid defeat at all cost method like the Portugese. We can't expect to outplay teams but yet we still try to do it

 

Does past experience really make a difference?

One of the posters above states that Gareth Southgate has done less than Eddie Howe, Steve Bruce and Alan Pardew in his career.

He's also done less than Roy Hodgson, Kevin Keegan, Fabio Capello and pretty much every England manager before him.

The advantage Southgate does have is that he's been part of the England set up for a while, been around most of the players, particularly the younger lads, and should know more about them than any other potential candidate. He should be the best fit to get the best out of them.

The problem with the English national team runs far deeper than the national team coach however. We could have Jose Mourinho, Alex Ferguson or Pep Guardiola in charge and in my opinion, we'll be no more than quarter final hopefuls as we have been for the last 20 years.

Changes have to be made to the English game if we are to be successful at international level. Maybe something as simple as making a rule where 50% of your match day squad has to be home grown players. Or 75%.

Gareth Southgate is the least of England's problems.

#TeamsLikeBarnsley

 

We know a better one, but keep it quiet shhhhh.

 

I have to agree with this

Given that half of the premier league is also foreign. Managers even copy the latest formations and tactics or adopt them from where they came from.

Now our qualified European teams are far from looking like winners.

 

During the 70s and 80s when the top flight hardly had any overseas players England were still poor.