If you’re not a football fan particularly, just someone who likes to dip in and out and/or support England in major tournaments, the situation with manager, Gareth Southgate may seem a little strange and confusing.
Here we have an articulate, smart, young manager who on the face of it, seems to have steered the perennial underachieving England team to new levels of performance, regularly challenging at World Cups and European Championships, having the respect of the football world after decades of sneering, yet England fans simply aren’t having Mr Southgate – with The European Championships kicking off in Germany very soon, what exactly is the problem?
Southgate is a lucky man – he has inherited an incredibly talented squad of players who are performing at extremely high levels every week, not just in the Premier league, but across Europe’s major leagues too and herein lies the problem.
Football fans across the country feel that with the talent at his disposal, Southgate should have overseen England being crowned World Champions AND European Champions by now and in all honesty, it is hard to argue!
It seems that every time England reach finals or semi-finals, we come up short and most supporters lay the blame for this failure firmly at the door of the manager.
‘Too cautious’ is the accusation – ‘a manager lacking in ambition’ when we have world class opponents by the throat, who goes into his shell and makes defensive decisions rather that looking for that second goal and win.
Memories are still vivid of the team failing to put Croatia to the sword during the 2018 World Cup semi-final, with Southgate’s timid approach allowing England’s lead to become more fragile by the minute and it seemed lessons were not learned in the 2020 European Championship final against Italy, when once again an early lead was ‘defended’ rather than these world-class players continuing to push on for victory, and even though every England fan could see exactly how the game was developing, it seems the manager couldn’t, with Italy equalising and eventually winning on penalties.
The brutal truth is that England fans have not forgiven Southgate for his incomprehensible ‘defensive’ tactics and probably never will.
With the likes of Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham, along with an array of generational talent, England are once again favourites for the upcoming Euro’s but whether Southgate will allow the side to play without their handbrake on remains to be seen – one thing is for certain, as far as England fans are concerned, it is Southgate’s last chance!!
Commentaires