Gareth Southgate

[HanoiVillan]

6 hours ago, TheAuthority said:

[...]this is football, and the expectation that "win it all and we're happy and lose and we're not," dissolves the degrees of pathos involved in football.

1990 we loved the way we lost with such effort (even though the team was somewhat ridiculed at the start of the tournament) and Gazza was born into an icon with his tears.

1996 was the swashbuckling valiant heroes led by Terry who were bested by the German rascals and Moller preening like a peacock.

1998 was a team dealt the harshest blow of Beckham's red card which meant that 10 men fought bravely with 3 lions on their chest until the end (or until David Batty.)

These are examples of the shades of emotion in football.

[...]

As I said above, previous managers and teams have experienced your number 2 outcome, but it's the journey to that outcome that informs the football fan's emotional attachment to the team and manager.

I can indeed tell that people dislike this manager, and that's a completely reasonable thing for people to do. I can't force anybody to like anybody and that wouldn't be worth trying. But I think if you interrogate what you've written here, you would see that a) it pins you at a certain age, and b) it reflects commonly-held national 'narratives' about past football tournaments which have come as much from iconic photographs and stories in the media as anything else. And that's fine, we all live within those narratives, but they are not the only ones that people are allowed. In particular, there are a generation of people too young to remember these tournaments (alas not me, though I don't remember 1990) who may be very proud of a national team who have reached the final 4 of the past two tournaments, qualified the best from the group stage at this one, and been led by people they might look up to in eg Rashford and Saka, and they're no less entitled to their feelings than you and I are to our musty memories of the tournaments of thirty years ago. But even when it comes to those tournaments, people can should challenge their memory of those narratives, particularly if we're levelling charges like 'we lose to the first decent team we come up against' (how is that not more true of Kevin Keegan than of Gareth Southgate?). 

6 hours ago, TheAuthority said:

The fact that to make your point about Gareth you've had to be so reductive in the above argument should tell you that it's a weak argument.

As I said above, previous managers and teams have experienced your number 2 outcome, but it's the journey to that outcome that informs the football fan's emotional attachment to the team and manager.

Without covering all of the arguments again about this generation: in most fans mind I don't think that Southgate with ever be thought of as a great England manager because of the talents at his disposal. Euro 2020 was such a missed opportunity to win a trophy that not only is there no emotional connection to him, there is no belief that he can actually deliver a winning performance when it really matters.

We're going to have to agree to disagree about this. I feel the opposite way, which is that it is incredibly useful to remember that 32 teams try to win a World Cup and 31 of them fail to do so, falling at various hurdles. Once you are into the final stages of a tournament (and therefore avoid scenario 1, which has already felled eg Belgium, Denmark, Germany and Uruguay this time), there are still multiple teams to beat who will by nature be of a similar level to England, and we need to decide what the expectation is. Many people on this forum talk as if the minimum expectation is winning all of those games AND doing so while playing attacking football in every game, and what can I say, people are entitled to their own expectations about standards but that's not one that many managers will be able to satisfy, not just this one. Again, just to remind ourselves, we hadn't reached a semi-final for more than 20 years when we did so in 2018; we hadn't reached a final for 65 years when we did so in 2021. 

[foreveryoung]

There is no doubt he plays cautious pragmatic football, which may win you a few games against the average teams and get you to the latter stages with boredom, but it will never win you trophies. Senegal shouldn't be a difficult game for us, we have over £1.5 Billion worth of players in our squad, but Senegal work hard and are physical, something Gareth will never be able to coach into this team, with his personality and priority on a defensive structure, it just isn't him. A big thing the media big up Gareth for is getting that fun factor back into the squad. The team enjoy training together, but for me this does not evolve into a team that has passion to win for the country, or make them hard working on the pitch, the big difference between the Gazza/Linker teams of old. We just seem to go out with this strict coached style on every player, which speaks volumes when you cannot get Grealish as a starter or have Foden as your MVP, but then one of Southgate's biggest downfalls is to stick with his favourites, i.e Kane is Englands Bale, he is not fit, he will be a big factor on us not progressing in this WC.

So is he really this great manager that has got us to a final of the Euros, for me no, I feel he has under achieved. A more technical, experienced manager, i.e, a Pep, Ancelotti or even a Poch, would have this team working hard, at least breaking a sweat, wining trophies I have no doubt.

[Pinebro]

2 minutes ago, foreveryoung said:

but it will never win you trophies.

Then how do you explain Greece winning the euros?

[foreveryoung]

40 minutes ago, Pinebro said:

Then how do you explain Greece winning the euros?

Like Leicester,  football has massively evolved since then.

[Zatman]

8 hours ago, Pinebro said:

Then how do you explain Greece winning the euros?

They had a manager who built a tactical system.

Is absolutely no comparison between Rehhagal and Southgate. One had won 3 Bundesligas and multiple trophies and one got Middlesbrough relegated by thinking Afonso Alves was an upgrade on Viduka

[Tomaszk]

Exactly the same as the Euros...

The only thing stopping us winning this is Gareth Southgate.

[villa4europe]

8 hours ago, Tomaszk said:

Exactly the same as the Euros...

The only thing stopping us winning this is Gareth Southgate and Harry Kane

FTFY

[HanoiVillan]

12 hours ago, Tomaszk said:

Exactly the same as the Euros...

The only thing stopping us winning this is Gareth Southgate.

It isn't though is it. Just for one obvious point, we are likely to have to play France in the QFs. If you were to name a combined France-England XI, how many English players would you put in it? Because for me it's no more than 1 or 2. 

[Tomaszk]

12 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

It isn't though is it. Just for one obvious point, we are likely to have to play France in the QFs. If you were to name a combined France-England XI, how many English players would you put in it? Because for me it's no more than 1 or 2. 

If England play well in that game, I'll be very surprised if they don't win.

[HanoiVillan]

10 minutes ago, Tomaszk said:

If England play well in that game, I'll be very surprised if they don't win.

That's just a tautology. Of course if England are the better side they are likely to win, my point is that the French - who also have agency and get a say in what happens - have better players and yes, a better manager, and so are more likely to win by preventing England from playing well. 

[Mr_Dogg]

5 hours ago, Tomaszk said:

If England play well in that game, I'll be very surprised if they don't win.

But what if France decide to play well also??

[villa4europe]

Saka in for rashford

Saka can defend and track back, cover the full back (who also won't attack)

This guy will never change, this is why people moan... Obvious watch saka have a blinder now but for me so far rashford looked the best player for running past kane when he dropped deep

[VillaParkAvenue]

How about this take: those mediocre England players are holding Gareth back?

[villa4europe]

5 minutes ago, VillaParkAvenue said:

How about this take: those mediocre England players are holding Gareth back?

The ones that sky, MOTD and the sun keep telling me are world class?

[rodders0223]

9 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

Saka in for rashford

Saka can defend and track back, cover the full back (who also won't attack)

This guy will never change, this is why people moan... Obvious watch saka have a blinder now but for me so far rashford looked the best player for running past kane when he dropped deep

Saka doesn't deserve to be dropped.

Rashford bagged 2 against Wales but horrific goalkeeping on both.

 

[coda]

46 minutes ago, VillaParkAvenue said:

How about this take: those mediocre England players are holding Gareth back?

 

 

[HKP90]

Regardless of what you think about Southgate and what we've done at the last few tournaments, there is a lot of revisionism of those tournaments in the 90's, especially Euro 96. For the most part, the media before and during those tournaments were calling the team out for everything and effectively calling our players and manager shit. After the pre tournament trip in 96 to Hong Kong, the media were screaming for Venebles' head, and for Gazza to be left behind. The feeling was that we would be a disgrace at the tournament. Then the game against Scotland happened, and the game against the Dutch, and after that point when looking back everyone nostalgically looks back at the team as the best we've had for ages, and on a wave of unilateral English support. 

And in fairness, they didn't get as close to winning it as we did at the last tournament. 

And since 1966 we've never been as close to winning the World Cup as the last tournament.

While I am critical of Southgate's tactics, I think we have to apply some perspective here. 

Edited December 4, 2022 by HKP90
Hong Kong, not Singapore, sorry.

[HKP90]

On 03/12/2022 at 14:27, foreveryoung said:

There is no doubt he plays cautious pragmatic football, which may win you a few games against the average teams and get you to the latter stages with boredom, but it will never win you trophies. Senegal shouldn't be a difficult game for us, we have over £1.5 Billion worth of players in our squad, but Senegal work hard and are physical, something Gareth will never be able to coach into this team, with his personality and priority on a defensive structure, it just isn't him. A big thing the media big up Gareth for is getting that fun factor back into the squad. The team enjoy training together, but for me this does not evolve into a team that has passion to win for the country, or make them hard working on the pitch, the big difference between the Gazza/Linker teams of old. We just seem to go out with this strict coached style on every player, which speaks volumes when you cannot get Grealish as a starter or have Foden as your MVP, but then one of Southgate's biggest downfalls is to stick with his favourites, i.e Kane is Englands Bale, he is not fit, he will be a big factor on us not progressing in this WC.

So is he really this great manager that has got us to a final of the Euros, for me no, I feel he has under achieved. A more technical, experienced manager, i.e, a Pep, Ancelotti or even a Poch, would have this team working hard, at least breaking a sweat, wining trophies I have no doubt.

Weren't we one kick away from winning the Euros? 

[foreveryoung]

6 minutes ago, HKP90 said:

Weren't we one kick away from winning the Euros? 

Did we win? No, because  Southgate went defensive from 30 minutes after the goal.

[Tomaszk]

1 hour ago, Mr_Dogg said:

But what if France decide to play well also??

England win.