Gareth Southgate

[useless]

Hardly anyone has a good word to say about Southgate as a manger and then as soon as there's a big tournament and England win a few games and suddenly people get swept away with the euphoria and start getting carried away with Southgate fever once again.

This era is the best chance England will get to win a major tournament, good squad and other big nations going through difficult periods, anything less than a big trophy win and Southgate will have been a failure as manager.

So far done well in the tournament, but haven't played anyone significant, if can get past France fair enough, but England with the talent they have should have higher standards than just being pleased with what they've done so far, you wouldn't catch German, France, Italy, and probably fans of lesser national teams lauding their managers  just because of beating the teams we've beaten.

[KentVillan]

I've always been very anti Southgate, but I think he is improving as a manager. He uses the squad better, and I find it harder to disagree with his 11s and his subs these days.

We're still not a very fluent team, but it's a lot better than it was.

The only thing I don't get is why Kane is getting run into the ground. Class player, but I think we could have benched him for the Wales game and as soon as we were 3-0 up against Senegal.

Also still not convinced our defence is good enough to handle the big sides. But very happy with this midfield now.

[Stevo985]

1 hour ago, Tomaszk said:

He can take as much credit as he likes. It's not his job to win football matches.

Funny how we look better with Foden in isn't it? With Bellingham. Picking players in form that should be starting, and winning you games is what he can't seem to do.

With no Sterling. No Mount. 

He's still forced a few of his favourites in of course. Maguire, Stones, Walker, Pickford, Henderson. Hope they don't cost us. Could have been 1-0 down but for a great save.

Henderson was excellent tonight and was exactly what we needed to set Bellingham free. 
 

Maguire and Pickford continue to be excellent for England. Pickford especially. 
 

Stones is our best centreback. Walker has his limitations but with Mbappe to come I understand wanting to get him up to speed. He’s our only defender who can live with Mbappe. 
 

I think Southgate has massive limitations but you’re going way overboard on this. It kinda discredits your opinion if I’m being brutally honest

[HanoiVillan]

20 minutes ago, useless said:

you wouldn't catch German, France, Italy, and probably fans of lesser national teams lauding their managers  just because of beating the teams we've beaten.

Maybe German, French and Italian fans should also remember that it's sport and that it's supposed to be fun at the end of the day. Maybe they could also remember that only one team wins any given tournament as well while they're at it. 

I'm going to go ahead and say that 'fans of lesser national teams', contra you, would probably be pretty pleased with being in the quarter finals, since none of them have made it that far at this point. 

[Stevo985]

49 minutes ago, sidcow said:

I'm not buying the talk about Southgate taking us deep into 2018 and 2020 tournaments. 

Name me 1 team we beat in both those tournaments that you wouldn't have expected us to beat? Answers accepted on a post card please. 

At the time Germany felt massive but in retrospect they are a team who have really fallen from Grace, they're not the power they've been. 

There are however plenty of teams you would have expected us to beat which we haven't. 

Germany is definitely one. Everyone expected us to lose. 
 

And you’re right that we SHOULD be beating the other teams. But previous England teams wouldn’t have. We were coming off the back of going out in the groups in 2014 and losing to Iceland in 2016, who we undoubtedly SHOULD have beaten. 
 

Football isn’t that easy. Teams don’t always beat the teams they SHOULD beat. In this tournament alone we’ve seen Argentina, Germany and Spain, undoubted giants of international football, all losing to teams they SHOULD beat. 
 

I’ve been critical of Southgate, and I actually agree that he isn’t good enough to beat the really good teams often. 
 

But to deny him any credit for consistently beating teams that we SHOULD beat when every single previous England team has actually been quite shit at that, is doing him a huge disservice

Edited December 4, 2022 by Stevo985

[KentVillan]

One thing that might help Southgate is there aren't loads of really top managers in this World Cup. In the Euros he came up against a "proper" manager in Mancini, who out thought him tactically.

You look at who he might be up against now, it's Deschamps, then Regragui / Enrique / Santos / Yakin if we make the semis, then likely Tite / Scaloni in the final.

Some decent coaches there (definitely better records than Southgate), but Enrique is the only one who's really got the elite silverware at club level.

[useless]

Being pleased with being in the quarter-finals isn't the same as lauding the manager, if Belgium had have reached the quarter-finals, I'm sure their fans would be happy, but the jury would still be very much out on Marinez for example and the jury will still be out on a number of mangers, including Southgate.

Edited December 4, 2022 by useless

[Tomaszk]

3 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

Henderson was excellent tonight and was exactly what we needed to set Bellingham free. 
 

Maguire and Pickford continue to be excellent for England. Pickford especially. 
 

Stones is our best centreback. Walker has his limitations but with Mbappe to come I understand wanting to get him up to speed. He’s our only defender who can live with Mbappe. 
 

I think Southgate has massive limitations but you’re going way overboard on this. It kinda discredits your opinion if I’m being brutally honest

Going overboard saying Southgate is a shit manager? By saying he is an overall negative to England and has cost us titles by picking his favourites over the obvious choices? And playing pathetic, passive football when the squad has been there for years to go at, and beat, anyone.

If everyone had been fit and available coming into this tournament, zero doubt Bellingham would be on the bench for Phillips and Sterling would have started over Foden.

I'm happy my opinions are correct. As they always are.

[HanoiVillan]

1 minute ago, useless said:

Being pleased with being in the quarter-finals isn't the same as lauding the manager, if Belgium had have reached the quarter-finals, I'm sure their fans would be happy, but the dury would still be very much out on Marinez for example and the dury will still be out on a number of mangers, including Southgate.

Assuming that's a response to my post, I would query whether Belgium really count as a 'lesser team'. I don't think this category of 'lesser team' that you're using can have all that many teams in it to be honest, because I feel very confident that if any of the teams that have so far lost in the round of 16 had managed the same record England had managed thus far, that they would in fact be lauding their managers. 

[Zatman]

34 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

Germany is definitely one. Everyone expected us to lose. 
 

And you’re right that we SHOULD be beating the other teams. But previous England teams wouldn’t have. We were coming off the back of going out in the groups in 2014 and losing to Iceland in 2016, who we undoubtedly SHOULD have beaten. 
 

Football isn’t that easy. Teams don’t always beat the teams they SHOULD beat. In this tournament alone we’ve seen Argentina, Germany and Spain, undoubted giants of international football, all losing to teams they SHOULD beat. 
 

I’ve been critical of Southgate, and I actually agree that he isn’t good enough to beat the really good teams often. 
 

But to deny him any credit for consistently beating teams that we SHOULD beat when every single previous England team has actually been quite shit at that, is doing him a huge disservice

Thats not true though. Germany suffered an embarrassing 2018 elimination and just got through vs Hungary in last 5 minutes and were a spent force

Nobody in Germany or most of Europe expected to knock England out away at Wembley and England struggled until Southgates nemesis Aston Villa Grealish came on

[PaulC]

1 hour ago, sidcow said:

I'm not buying the talk about Southgate taking us deep into 2018 and 2020 tournaments. 

Name me 1 team we beat in both those tournaments that you wouldn't have expected us to beat? Answers accepted on a post card please. 

At the time Germany felt massive but in retrospect they are a team who have really fallen from Grace, they're not the power they've been. 

There are however plenty of teams you would have expected us to beat which we haven't. 

Well this is his chance to put things right. 

[Stevo985]

16 minutes ago, Zatman said:

Thats not true though. Germany suffered an embarrassing 2018 elimination and just got through vs Hungary in last 5 minutes and were a spent force

Nobody in Germany or most of Europe expected to knock England out away at Wembley and England struggled until Southgates nemesis Aston Villa Grealish came on

The question was a team who you (assume England fans) EXPECTED us to beat. 
 

Nobody expected us to beat Germany. We knew we had a chance. But expected? Nah

[Spoony]

1 hour ago, Stevo985 said:

Germany is definitely one. Everyone expected us to lose. 
 

And you’re right that we SHOULD be beating the other teams. But previous England teams wouldn’t have. We were coming off the back of going out in the groups in 2014 and losing to Iceland in 2016, who we undoubtedly SHOULD have beaten. 
 

Football isn’t that easy. Teams don’t always beat the teams they SHOULD beat. In this tournament alone we’ve seen Argentina, Germany and Spain, undoubted giants of international football, all losing to teams they SHOULD beat. 
 

I’ve been critical of Southgate, and I actually agree that he isn’t good enough to beat the really good teams often. 
 

But to deny him any credit for consistently beating teams that we SHOULD beat when every single previous England team has actually been quite shit at that, is doing him a huge disservice

This for me is key. People love to point out “easy runs” but we have been totally undone by lower ranked teams time and time again. These days if we face a team we should be beating, we actually do beat them. 

[ThunderPower_14]

1 hour ago, Spoony said:

This for me is key. People love to point out “easy runs” but we have been totally undone by lower ranked teams time and time again. These days if we face a team we should be beating, we actually do beat them. 

This is fine, but it doesn't necessarily translate to being able to win tournaments or to beat very good opponents in form. It's a system that seems designed to do exactly what you've described, consistently beat poor teams.

I think Southgate plays a defensive style that makes England hard to score against. But because of that, the system isn't great at generating chances. Against poor teams, England's talent will simply outclass them and create chances and score anyway, but against quality opposition, all of a sudden we can't generate chances, and that quality opposition will find their way through the defence enough times to score. 

I also think Southgate has the team playing a bit more positively this tournament and I definitely think we can beat France, but I can just as easily see a performance like we saw against Italy in the Euro final, where we simply can't get anything going and barely get a shot away. Fingers crossed!

 

[blandy]

2 hours ago, ThunderPower_14 said:

Southgate plays a defensive style that makes England hard to score against. But because of that, the system isn't great at generating chances. Against poor teams, England's talent will simply outclass them and create chances and score anyway, but against quality opposition, all of a sudden we can't generate chances, and that quality opposition will find their way through the defence enough times to score. 

If you look at the, or his, England sides, the player strength is in attacking roles, and the vulnerability is defensive. That's just the mix of available players. Beyond his control or influence. So to make the best of that balance, from a coaching and tactical perspective the manager needs to minimise the vulnerability while not completely damaging the attacking strengths.  By and large he has done that, though leaving all of us wanting a bit more of an emphasis on the "front foot" all out attacking, gung ho approach. When it comes to the top opposition that's the test. To get the balance right. This tournament he's finally got a midfield which could help solve it, because Bellingham.  Previously he there wasn't the player who could both do the defensive shielding and also add creatively, but now with Rice and Bellingham there are two gems of players in there. When England click now, they really click. The times when they don't is still a bit too turgid, but those times are fewer and shorter and it s feels like " we could spark to life", whether via a sub, or via someone coming to life. The talent's there and IMO the system, while not actively enabling it, certainly doesn't hamper it, which has not always been the case. The system does mostly cover the defensive weakness and leave the side in a position to win.  Beyond that, it's down the players.

[Demitri_C]

I still maintain though southgate has had it easy. Barring Germany (and you can see how poor they ahve become now) we really havent had a top side to play and now we have.

Lets see how he does against france. If he beats them then we seriously do need to give hom a break as that would be impressive 

Then in semis should we get through likley to be spain or Portugal another tough draw. With likley brazil Argentina in final

This wc has alot of the big hitters still in it which makes it fascinating 

As it doesnt matter what side your on you have tough teams to play unlike the euros last summer

[S-Platt]

9 hours ago, KentVillan said:

One thing that might help Southgate is there aren't loads of really top managers in this World Cup. In the Euros he came up against a "proper" manager in Mancini, who out thought him tactically.

You look at who he might be up against now, it's Deschamps, then Regragui / Enrique / Santos / Yakin if we make the semis, then likely Tite / Scaloni in the final.

Some decent coaches there (definitely better records than Southgate), but Enrique is the only one who's really got the elite silverware at club level.

Van Gaal will have a say he has won the lot and has an average Dutch team playing above their level.

[KAZZAM]

Southgate is a terrible manager and I've always been well against him. 

However that team last night isn't far off our best lineup. Sad It's only taken him 4+ years  to discover playing our best players over his favourites is best. 

Sterling and Mount better not come back in vs France or ill be furious. 

[calcifer]

24 minutes ago, KAZZAM said:

Southgate is a terrible manager and I've always been well against him. 

However that team last night isn't far off our best lineup. Sad It's only taken him 4+ years  to discover playing our best players over his favourites is best. 

Sterling and Mount better not come back in vs France or ill be furious. 

You just know he will be back in the team...

 

[coda]

Gareth Southgate is for life, not just for Christmas.