Southgate...

The Gareth Southgate that took the Middlesbrough team the wally with the brolly took to the uefa cup final - and relegated them - and the Eddie Howe who’s got Newcastle United into the champions league you mean?

I’m not sure there’s too much funny about it.

 

I dont dislike the guy at all, he's done wonders for the squad in terms of moral. You obviously want him to stay so youre sticking up for the lad. His record is poor against top 10 teams, considering our squad, whatever way you spin it. He lost to Italy who then failed to qualify for the world cup after being beaten by North Macedonia. He cost us that euro final and the Croatia semi final.

 

Created a club style mentality at international level.

Hard to do, the players seem to love being apart of the England set up, somthing we haven’t had for years.

Getting rid of a manager who is winning games this close to a tournament would be idiotic.

A new manager with 3 games until a tournament would be stupid. And never will happen.

 

One thing I’ll never understand…when foreigners come to England they say it takes a season to get used to the fast tempo…..in our infinite wisdom we decide to slow it down at international level. Wasted so much talent and time doing the opposite. Barmy

 

The results you quote shown he’s lost as many as he’s won. With the exception possibly of France, he had a better quality and deeper squad than all of those. Spain, Germany, Croatia, Netherlands, Belgium - probably France as well - would give their right arm for a Jude Bellingham, Phil Foden, Harry Kane. Even a Saka. Declan rice. (They’d probably let us keep Jordan Henderson and Mason Mount I’d imagine).

And I don’t disregard friendlies, they arent competitive games ok, but aren’t totally meaningless.

His record prior to the last Italy game, which has been quoted but which you seem to want to disregard, was 27 games against sides ranked in the top ten at the time, 7 wins. A smidge over one in four. It’s woeful with the squad he has.

Your figures would have the final we conspired to lose against a limited Italy side, by only actually playing for about ten minutes, as a draw rather than defeat by the way. Similarly the Croatia semi was a draw after 90 minutes so possibly scored a draw too.

This year we played six ‘competitive’ games in the nations league against Italy, Germany and Hungary. A pretty generous draw. We didn’t win a game, losing three and drawing three. Losing twice to a Callum Styles inspired Hungary, including a 4-0 drubbing at home. They next time around we will be in Group B with teams like Kazakhstan and Georgia, whilst the top level will include sides like Israel, Bosnia … and Scotland.

The FA won’t sack Southgate. We will go into the tournament next year with high hopes, we will tiptoe to the knockout stages and will lose, possibly after extra time or penalties, against a team we could and should have beaten and probably would have done if they hadn’t gone out frightened and shackled.

And we’ll be gaslighted that Southgate is a messiah as he’s got us into another quarter or semi.

It doesn’t wash. He’s an excellent ambassador and I think he should be involved for life at a higher level. He shouldn’t be anywhere near the frontline though. He’s an awful head coach.

I’ve asked this before - which club in England, Europe, the world, would be looking to employ him? I genuinely don’t think a single premier league team would want him.

 

His record is not poor against the top 10 teams as I pointed out in the previous post, carrying on suggesting it is ridiculous when the actual head to head results are in front of you. The actual facts are that under Southgate we have been behind Belgium and France and have proved equal to Spain and in front of Italy, Croatia and Germany.

 

Some excellent points made here. Southgate's a very very good man manager. But not an elite tactitian or coach.

What kind of job would he get after England? Certainly not a top 6/7 Premier League side. I could see him as a nice fit at Crystal Palace, but that's about it.

Next man in, we need someone who is up there with the very best tactically to get the fine margins to fall our way with this fantastic group of players.

 

You do realise that during the period when England suffered a string of defeats Phil Foden, Jude Bellingham and Saka were barely out of their academies. Declan Rice hadn't scored a goal in the league until 2019.
Incidentally I counted the Italian penalty shoot out win as a defeat... as is the Croatia loss.

 

Of course he’d get a premier league job. Everton appointed Frank Lampard. Southampton gave Nathan Jones ago. Palace gave a relative novice in Vieira a go. Sheff Utd gave Heckingbottom a go the last time they were in the prem. Leeds gave Big Sam a go after years out of the game and so on.

He wouldn’t get a top 8 job but then again no one good enough to coach a top 8 club would want the England job because they won’t pay the wages so that’s irrelevant.

The best managers want club roles.

The problem with international football is that they barely get anytime with the players & even when they do many of them are unavailable.

You can win all the qualifiers in the world but you’re only judged on tournaments every two years & you can literally be out on a refereeing decision, a freak goal, a penalty miss (as we know!).

I’m not even a big fan of Southgate but I think there’s only really the Italy game you can criticise him for. We had a far weaker team & squad when we played Croatia & we more than matched a superior France team (in my opinion).

If we go the Euro’s & don’t show up then I’ll criticise him but if we give a good account of ourselves & only lose narrowly to a top side like France again then I’m not going to slate him.

 

Well said.

There’s a bit of a myth on here that England had a brilliant squad throughout Southgate’s time in charge.

Plenty of our top players were only really around from Euro 2021 onwards & for most of them Euro 2021 was their first tournament.

 

I’ll take your point on the France game - in my eyes that’s the one game they did have a proper go at getting back into.

There’s probably someone daft enough to give him a premier league job as well.

As for money, though, online sources (including the guardian) give Southgate as being on a salary of £5million a year.

https://www.givemesport.com/premier...k-ten-hag-manchester-united---pound-9-million

The above shows only five premier league managers on a larger salary than this. Eddie Howe and Unai Emery on less, Ange Postecoglu on the same. Also on less are Thomas Frank, Steve Cooper and Roberto De Zerbi. I would have any of those names in the England job.

At the last World Cup Southgate was the second highest paid coach, behind Hansi Flick. Given he’s had the tin tack since then, it might well be that the FA pay the highest salary of all international coaches and Gareth Southgate is the highest paid international head coach. That is a crime.

 

I’m genuinely surprised at that. I thought the others were on more. Howe probably is via his owners somehow like the City guys but I thought Spurs paid more.

It’s pretty obvious though that none of the top managers want to manage international sides. I think it’s a much tougher job personally.

I think managers like Klopp & Guardiola that coach players intensely would really struggle without the time they get at club sides.

 

That was 14 years ago. Are we suggesting Soutgate's done nothing in the years since?

And as for Eddie Howe. He'd do a fantastic job for England...with £150,000,000 to spend. His time at Bournemouth was largely the same. We'll never know if he's the mastermind coach everyone thinks he is, until he's got a side where the budget isn't essentially unlimited.

 

Successful club coaches tend to have eye watering budgets - but with Howe he’s done a lot more at Newcastle than spend himself to improvement. As well as spending on domestic players like Dan Burn who’d go under the radar to other people with similar spending power, he’s hugely improved players like Callum Wilson (getting him onto the England squad twice at Bournemouth and then a recall after years away at Newcastle), Sean Longstaff and Fabian Schar amongst others.

He also did a fantastic job for years at Bournemouth. He had an inflated budget to a certain extent there, and I’ve my reservations about the running of that club off the field, but even with the money he had, in premier league terms, he had them punching well above their weight for many a season.

As for £150,000,000 - it wouldn’t buy you many of the England squad.

 

Try waiting another 57 hrs since we last won a major tournament. .

 

I Dont know why there is all the clamour for Howe.
Guardiola anyone. Wants to manage a national side. And the FA apparantly checking him out.
Southgate will be gone after euro 24.. and whether we like it or not. (And I'm not a fan of his. In fact I've not been a fan of any england manager for decades.) he ain't going anywhere till then.

 

Makes you laugh. "Checking him out". He's only the best in the business yet the F.A need to "check him out". Can't see further than end of their noses. Got it wrong when they didn't appoint Brian Clough too.

 

I probably didnt word it right. I meant whether Guardiola would make himself available. They definitely want to approach him apparently.

 

Only ‘clamouring’ for Howe based on a him being a realistic (in my eyes) option.

Obviously I’d take Pep in a heartbeat. Or Klopp.

Don’t see it as likely currently that’s all.

 

Surprised on a thread about Southgate sticking with the tried and tested no one has pointed out how many players he has brought in.