More than half of those wishful options will not want to go into international football. Regardless or especially since it’s England, where now what, only gold will be approved as success? Good luck with that, fans of much more recently successful nations don’t have such “stances”. It’s more desperation. Carra gave a great interview yesterday on that topic.
Have a feeling that those who called for Southgate’s head, very possibly won’t get what they wanted, when they look back in a few years’ time. I remember individually better English sides who weren’t even close as this side was in the last few years.
A lot of factors can decide the fate of a month’s tournament football at the end of a season. Nobody is perfect. Someone else might and will succeed one day. But it won’t be all because “Southgate wasn’t this or that”.
Different types of coaches win stuff. And also fail. Deschamps of this world, de la Fuentes of this world, Rehhagels of this world. Proven winners at the top level, lower profile CV’s, foreigners. Impossible to get wishes of the FA and all fans perfectly aligned.
Both sides and especially the decision makers need to be careful that they don’t go back into a wild circle of “now give us a Capello!” > “time for Eddie Howe, he’s different!” > “let’s copy the Spanish and give it to Carsley!” > "ah f*ck, give us another Southgate!.
Gareth did more than be just a manager. When he took over, the team was fragmented, the players were reluctant to play for the national team and he got rid of the cliques and club rivalries and he created an atmosphere of camaraderie amongst the players.
He made sure England regularly participated in International tournaments on a regular basis and advanced his team to semi-finals and two finals. In years to come, he will much more appreciated for things he did behind the scenes.
The personal abuse and vitriol he and the team got throughout the years from some our fanbase was disgraceful.
Thank you Gareth for making me believe again and making me reconnect with the national team. So proud of the boys and Gareth.
P.s we fans need to ditch ’ its coming home’ and be less cocky.
To be fair, the FA, the Media and the Pundits should be on their knees begging Klopp to take this England side.
After all, Klopp was the one that ended the 30 years wait for the league title and the 14 years wait for the UCL for Liverpool and a first CWC for LFC too. No other manager other than Pep ( who needed financial doping) comes close.
Lets get it home first then we can discuss the quality of football.
Southgate is a great illustration that the England manager is a toxic job that is going to get fuckering hammered by certain segments of the country regardless of what he does, and I do think some of the criticism of him has been due to that. But this tournament has been a very situation. In previous tournaments they haven’t had to get past too many good sides to progress, but have at least looked mostly competent if uninspired in doing so. People might have complained about the football being boring, but you could at least see a game plan that the players knew what they were doing and suited the players who were available. The run in this tournament saw none of that. It was a team that looked confused, played at its best when the game plan was ripped up and they just went for it and so progression was due solely to an incredibly soft draw. But critically they still looked shit doing it. Not boring, but shit, as in lucky to advance and giving little reason to think they were building to something.
Southgate should leave with lots of credit and praise for what he did in previous cycles, but this was a team that had outgrown his ideas and him.
Improbable, but far more likely than the England job. While Southgate has his very clear limitations, he did manage the off-field circus far better than his predecessors, allowing his talented squads to lose because they played mediocre football instead of self-destructing as they had so frequently in the past. A key part of that was in relation to the English footy press. I cannot imagine that Klopp has any interest in dealing with that crap.
I actually could see him be pretty successful at international management. Loves the camera and the celebrity, pretty good with tactics. His biggest flaw at the club level was always recruitment and that (aside from not being charismatic enough to entice duel nationals) isn’t so relevant for the national team - more picking the best team from who is available.
Of course there are already reports he’s been contacted and declined to discuss the USA job at this time. Think he is serious about not doing anything until 2025.
The problem with Rodgers’ tactics is that in the moment, he is dogmatic, even if over the arc of a season he is pragmatic. He will stick with something through a match, through a string of matches, before he will switch to another idea. During that process, he will blame his players. Neither of those traits work well at the international level. Your team only plays 4-5 games if it is winning, and the central problem is keeping the group cohesive and motivated with very little time working together.
His biggest flaw is that nothing is ever his fault. Issues with recruitment are downstream from that. Similar to what @Arminius said about Southgate’s strengths, imagine Brendon taking a press conference prior to the Swiss game and fielding the same sort of questions about the poor performances. It would have been utter carnage the number of players thrown under the bus with his responses.
Plus as a German,with both the yellow press’ and England fan culture’s Germanophobia.
And as a very recent ex-Liverpool manager with all the tribalism.
All that on top of inflated expectations.
He’d be mental to do it.
Boredom should be cured by doing something fun and enjoyable. Taking on the England job wouldn’t be that (I assume). He’s German, the fans still sing about the wars on a regular basis! We (Liverpool fans) love Klopp, and many fans of other clubs like him, but there’s a large proportion that dislike him. The second something goes were to go south for him, it’d be mass media chaos including the questioning of having a non-English (I agree on that) etc etc.
Aside from Klopp, I reckon Potter is the guy to go for.
Especially during the extended duration of a summer tournament by all accounts he has put together a structure that the players were happy to be a part of. A happy camp during a tournament has not always been a given and the failure to do that as frequently been the downfall of talented sides. His experience as a player, experiencing the contrast between Venables and Hoddle, was surely a big part of that. I will be interesting to see how seemingly better game tacticians do with this team while lacking that intangible
