Gareth Southgate

[Vive_La_Villa]

1 hour ago, StefanAVFC said:

He's also had insane luck in tournaments in terms of match ups.

The only really good win under him was Germany in the Euros. Other than that we've lost to any team on our level or better in major tournaments.

You could argue it was a Germany in transition too. They didn’t even get out the group stages of the World Cup a year later.

Edited March 25 by Vive_La_Villa

[Stevo985]

13 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

It's mental that that's probably the only knockout game we've won against properly good opposition for about 40 years. And they weren't even that good at that point

I'll revise this. It's the only knockout game against good opposition we've won since 1966.

We've only won 12 knockout games since 1966, and 6 of those have come under Southgate

[Jonesy7211]

His overall win record is padded out as well because we play many more lower ranked teams than we ever used to, especially at the major tournaments. There are more teams at the World Cups and Euros than there have ever been. Both were competitions that were for elite national teams until Fifa and Uefa greed took priority over the football. Not taking anything away from the lower ranked teams that do qualify, we just play more of them now.

His record against the top teams is what he should be judged on, and this is fairly awful considering the players we have. We're only a centre half and goalie away from having one of the strongest first XI's in international football.

[StefanAVFC]

Just now, Stevo985 said:

I'll revise this. It's the only knockout game against good opposition we've won since 1966.

We've only won 12 knockout games since 1966, and 6 of those have come under Southgate

Germany
Colombia
Sweden
Denmark
Ukraine
Senegal

It's not surprising to see why he's won 6!

[pas5898]

2 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

You could argue it was a Germany in transition too. They didn’t even get out the group stages of the World Cup a year later.

A German team, in transition just after Covid at a fervent Wembley stadium. This would have been the first game many of the German players played in front of fans for 15 months!

Despite all of that, it took Thomas Muller inexplicably missing a 1 on 1 chance just before we sealed the game. 

I genuinely believe, we will look back on this era as a huge missed opportunity with a novice in charge. 

[Stevo985]

7 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

Germany
Colombia
Sweden
Denmark
Ukraine
Senegal

It's not surprising to see why he's won 6!

Oh yeah, it wasn't a massive compliment.

Although again he does deserve SOME credit, because England previously had been very good at losing knockout games even if the opponent was crap *cough* Iceland *cough*

But yeah there really are no big scalps in there. 

 

But if you look down the list of people we've beaten and people we'ev gone out to in international tournaments, it's clear that since 1966, every time England have come up against anyone half decent in a knockout game, we've lost. Spain in 1996 is literally the only other one you could point to as a scalp, but Spain in 1996 were nowhere near as good as they became 10-15 years later

[Tom13]

2 hours ago, StefanAVFC said:

He's also had insane luck in tournaments in terms of match ups.

The only really good win under him was Germany in the Euros. Other than that we've lost to any team on our level or better in major tournaments.

And that was effectively a home game against a weak German side.

[Tom13]

Mr Motivator move over

[NeilS]

2 hours ago, StefanAVFC said:

He's also had insane luck in tournaments in terms of match ups.

The only really good win under him was Germany in the Euros. Other than that we've lost to any team on our level or better in major tournaments.

It could be argued that German team was one of the weakest they have had in a big tournament, and even then if Thomas Muller had stuck that one on one chance away like you would expect him to 99 times out of 100 then it could well have ended a different way.

[StefanAVFC]

5 wins in 25 against top 10 opposition.

A top 10 prem team has that record in a season and their manager is sacked.

[Tom13]

13 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

5 wins in 25 against top 10 opposition.

A top 10 prem team has that record in a season and their manager is sacked.

Is this record actually fact?

[AJ]

1 hour ago, Tom13 said:

Mr Motivator move over

[HanoiVillan]

1 hour ago, StefanAVFC said:

5 wins in 25 against top 10 opposition.

A top 10 prem team has that record in a season and their manager is sacked.

 

48 minutes ago, Tom13 said:

Is this record actually fact?

I seem to find myself taking the role of 'Southgate defender' more often that I actually want to (I don't deny he's a very flawed manager), but I do think it's worth putting a couple of asterisks in this statistic, namely:

• Presumably a lot of these games are friendlies, where the result is by definition not particularly important. Of course you don't *want* to lose, but international managers do need space to try new players and systems in competitive-but-not-meaningful games, or else they'd never do anything new. Nobody counts pre-season friendly results when assessing club managers' performances. 
• A bunch of the other games are from the Nations League. My recollection of this tournament was that most fans, media and players treated it as an irrelevant annoyance for the most part. I also seem to remember a lot of players pulling out with 'injuries' and finding reasons not to participate. Now maybe that's wrong, or maybe we can argue that it's the manager's job to take all these games terribly seriously even if nobody else is, but I think it's a *bit* harsh to turn around after the event and be annoyed about results from games you didn't care about when they were played. That's not to excuse all the results or the performances, still less being doubled by Hungary FFS, but I think it's relevant context. 

[StefanAVFC]

1 minute ago, HanoiVillan said:

 

I seem to find myself taking the role of 'Southgate defender' more often that I actually want to (I don't deny he's a very flawed manager), but I do think it's worth putting a couple of asterisks in this statistic, namely:

• Presumably a lot of these games are friendlies, where the result is by definition not particularly important. Of course you don't *want* to lose, but international managers do need space to try new players and systems in competitive-but-not-meaningful games, or else they'd never do anything new. Nobody counts pre-season friendly results when assessing club managers' performances. 
• A bunch of the other games are from the Nations League. My recollection of this tournament was that most fans, media and players treated it as an irrelevant annoyance for the most part. I also seem to remember a lot of players pulling out with 'injuries' and finding reasons not to participate. Now maybe that's wrong, or maybe we can argue that it's the manager's job to take all these games terribly seriously even if nobody else is, but I think it's a *bit* harsh to turn around after the event and be annoyed about results from games you didn't care about when they were played. That's not to excuse all the results or the performances, still less being doubled by Hungary FFS, but I think it's relevant context. 

That's reasonable, but if you take into account only tournament games this is the record:

WC 2018:

Belgium - loss
Croatia - loss
Belgium - loss

Euros 20 (21):

Germany - Win
Italy - Loss

WC22:

France - Loss

Which is still shit IMO. 1 win across those tournaments with teams with similar or inferior talent. And if you add how dreadful we generally look in friendlies/nations leagues games against top teams too, then it just makes it worse.

Also you'd need to look at the record of other similar teams like France or Spain across their friendlies/nations leagues games but I don't have any willingness to do so.

[HanoiVillan]

15 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

That's reasonable, but if you take into account only tournament games this is the record:

WC 2018:

Belgium - loss
Croatia - loss
Belgium - loss

Euros 20 (21):

Germany - Win
Italy - Loss

WC22:

France - Loss

Which is still shit IMO. 1 win across those tournaments with teams with similar or inferior talent. And if you add how dreadful we generally look in friendlies/nations leagues games against top teams too, then it just makes it worse.

Also you'd need to look at the record of other similar teams like France or Spain across their friendlies/nations leagues games but I don't have any willingness to do so.

I have two other issues with this way of looking at things. Firstly, it is quite circular; if we beat them they were shit, but if we lost to them they were good. There's an element of disrespect in it too; did everyone agree in 2018 when we played them that Colombia were shit? I don't remember everyone believing that at the time. Nor do I remember everyone agreeing that Denmark were shit in 2020. It seems to suggest that only games against the top 6 or 7 sides in Europe or South America can ever be a challenge, which instinctively I don't like.

And then secondly, essentially every manager at a tournament is going to have a record like this, except for the manager of the winners, and like, the Moroccan manager. It's just the nature of tournaments that most teams exit fairly early, having lost to one of the best sides, and having won - if any games - against sides weaker than themselves. 

Now I realise in picking holes with all versions of this statistic that I'm not offering a positive statistical yardstick to measure performance against, but really that's because I don't think there's an unproblematic one. It's just very different from club management, where you play every weekend so win percentages are more meaningful. International games are rare, and tournaments rarer, so the context of the moment matters more in evaluating performance IMO. And the context of 2018 was, we went into the tournament extremely pessimistic with an 'it's a free hit' attitude, we hadn't won a knockout game for decades, and then we won two. The context of 2022 is that we played well against France and didn't get the game to extra time because Kane missed a penalty. 

Ultimately, a lot of this comes down to whether people think 'nothing less than winning the tournament' is a reasonable expectation to set for a manager. I don't think it is, more or less ever. But clearly others disagree (this is the only possible meaning of 'we'll never win anything with him in charge' after all) so I suppose people who feel like that will and should simply ignore any wider context. 

[StefanAVFC]

1 minute ago, HanoiVillan said:

I have two other issues with this way of looking at things. Firstly, it is quite circular; if we beat them they were shit, but if we lost to them they were good. There's an element of disrespect in it too; did everyone agree in 2018 when we played them that Colombia were shit? I don't remember everyone believing that at the time. Nor do I remember everyone agreeing that Denmark were shit in 2020. It seems to suggest that only games against the top 6 or 7 sides in Europe or South America can ever be a challenge, which instinctively I don't like.

And then secondly, essentially every manager at a tournament is going to have a record like this, except for the manager of the winners, and like, the Moroccan manager. It's just the nature of tournaments that most teams exit fairly early, having lost to one of the best sides, and having won - if any games - against sides weaker than themselves. 

Now I realise in picking holes with all versions of this statistic that I'm not offering a positive statistical yardstick to measure performance against, but really that's because I don't think there's an unproblematic one. It's just very different from club management, where you play every weekend so win percentages are more meaningful. International games are rare, and tournaments rarer, so the context of the moment matters more in evaluating performance IMO. And the context of 2018 was, we went into the tournament extremely pessimistic with an 'it's a free hit' attitude, we hadn't won a knockout game for decades, and then we won two. The context of 2022 is that we played well against France and didn't get the game to extra time because Kane missed a penalty. 

Ultimately, a lot of this comes down to whether people think 'nothing less than winning the tournament' is a reasonable expectation to set for a manager. I don't think it is, more or less ever. But clearly others disagree (this is the only possible meaning of 'we'll never win anything with him in charge' after all) so I suppose people who feel like that will and should simply ignore any wider context. 

You gave logic to why this stat wasn't fair. I gave the results that show taking those games out actually makes the stat worse. I'm not sure what else I can do?

1 minute ago, HanoiVillan said:

Ultimately, a lot of this comes down to whether people think 'nothing less than winning the tournament' is a reasonable expectation to set for a manager.

I don't think that's the case at all. If you want to totally ignore results based on the goalpost moving logic above, then look at performances. The standout performances in tournaments in a negative sense stand out more. Even within the wins; Denmark was just awful. Even Colombia! Croatia and Italy were entirely winnable but he decided to go safe at 1-0 up and threw it away. As I said before, Germany was probably the only decent performance at a tournament. Senegal was 4-0 but so edgy at 1-0 until they tired.

We did as well as we did in spite of him, not because of him.

[HanoiVillan]

3 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

You gave logic to why this stat wasn't fair. I gave the results that show taking those games out actually makes the stat worse. I'm not sure what else I can do?

Probably nothing! As I say, I don't think the stat is particularly meaningful, in any form. You're free to disagree of course. 

3 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

I don't think that's the case at all. If you want to totally ignore results based on the goalpost moving logic above, then look at performances. The standout performances in tournaments in a negative sense stand out more. Even within the wins; Denmark was just awful. Even Colombia! Croatia and Italy were entirely winnable but he decided to go safe at 1-0 up and threw it away. As I said before, Germany was probably the only decent performance at a tournament. Senegal was 4-0 but so edgy at 1-0 until they tired.

We did as well as we did in spite of him, not because of him.

Performances is a better metric IMO, and I don't completely disagree, but it's a more balanced ledger:

• 2018 - Colombia (nervy but got the job done); Sweden (fine); Croatia (poor) (don't care about 3rd/4th place playoff, I'm sorry)
• 2020 - Germany (good); Ukraine (excellent); Denmark (nervy but got the job done); Italy (poor, and tactically outclassed)
• 2022 - Senegal (fine); France (disappointing result but a good performance in defeat to an excellent side)

That's about even. 

[StefanAVFC]

4 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Probably nothing! As I say, I don't think the stat is particularly meaningful, in any form. You're free to disagree of course. 

Performances is a better metric IMO, and I don't completely disagree, but it's a more balanced ledger:

• 2018 - Colombia (nervy but got the job done); Sweden (fine); Croatia (poor) (don't care about 3rd/4th place playoff, I'm sorry)
• 2020 - Germany (good); Ukraine (excellent); Denmark (nervy but got the job done); Italy (poor, and tactically outclassed)
• 2022 - Senegal (fine); France (disappointing result but a good performance in defeat to an excellent side)

That's about even. 

The original point was about his record against top 10 teams which is clearly not good, for a team of our talent.

I wouldn't call Colombia and Denmark nervy, I'd call them poor. Especially Denmark. They were completely dead and they took us to ET because we, (guess what) sat on a 1-0 lead.

Colombia the same.

So in 3 tournaments, we've done the same thing over and over again. And in every single one, we had the same outcome.

If we actually utilized our attacking talents, and went out with some flair, and he had the same tournament record, he wouldn't get nearly anywhere as much criticism.

But ultimately, he plays boring football with very good players.

Like driving a Lambo in 1st gear, and then crashing it anyway.

[Stevo985]

His record against top 10 teams is appalling whichever way you look at it.

 

Tournament performances in general go back to what I said earlier. It's not BAD, it's clearly an improvement on pretty much every england manager ever. But the argument that a different manager would have done an even better job is valid. very valid

[bobzy]

1 hour ago, HanoiVillan said:

Probably nothing! As I say, I don't think the stat is particularly meaningful, in any form. You're free to disagree of course. 

Performances is a better metric IMO, and I don't completely disagree, but it's a more balanced ledger:

• 2018 - Colombia (nervy but got the job done); Sweden (fine); Croatia (poor) (don't care about 3rd/4th place playoff, I'm sorry)
• 2020 - Germany (good); Ukraine (excellent); Denmark (nervy but got the job done); Italy (poor, and tactically outclassed)
• 2022 - Senegal (fine); France (disappointing result but a good performance in defeat to an excellent side)

That's about even. 

You're missing group games for some reason.

2018:  Struggled past Tunisia with a 91st minute winner, hammered Panama and lost to the only decent side in the group - Belgium.  Pretty crap in the group tbh.  Drew against Colombia and won on penalties, fine against Sweden (don't really remember the game) and won 2-0, lost to Croatia.  Lost to Belgium.  4(?) decent sides faced, 0 wins.

2020:  Avenged defeat against Croatia with a 1-0 win, drew a home game against the old enemy, Scotland, beat Czech 1-0.  Again, pretty crap group but through.  Then we played well against Germany and Ukraine, edged past Denmark in extra time and drew against Italy, losing on penalties.  3(?) decent sides faced, 2 wins.

2022:  USA, Iran and Wales in the group - should be a cruise group, easy enough but drew against USA 0-0.  Beat Senegal with ease, lose to France 2-1.  1 decent side faced, 0 wins.

I make it 8 decent sides faced in tournaments, 2 wins.  Good enough?