Can you admit that Southgate is doing a great job yet?

BoroMart said:
But, you can't win them all, we don't have the best squad in the world.

When you look back at the last WC semi, was that squad really a top 4 squad? NO

If you look back at the last euros, it was but then you need a bit of luck on the day. That team was lacking in experience compared to their Italian counterparts, no shame in losing a final. Getting there is in itself a form of success for a country that doesn't usually do so.

Now we have got out of a group, unbeaten, with 3 other teams ranked in teh top 20, no gimmes, yet we got out comfortably in the end. I'd see losing to Senegal as failure, we have too much quality and must find a way to make it count. After that France who have a much better squad than us, look likely, we would be second favourites, beating them would have to see southgate haters fall on their sword, but losing to them wouldn't see him as a failure against a better squad.
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I generally agree with your points, and certainly your analysis of the current tournament.

I wouldn't classify a loss to France as a failure necessarily, but if we show no ability to change the system while losing the game, or go 1-0 up and shell up and end up losing, I think we should ask questions.

My point is that while he's done well to get to those stages, there has to be criticism where it's due, and the performance in both of those knockout matches deserves examination.

To reference your points about social media, I think there's a danger of just assuming one side is fully against and one side is fully for.
As ever, I think the truth lies somewhere in between. I think there's a not insignificant group of people who aren't necessarily Southgate haters, but are rightly critical of certain aspects of this England team.
I don't criticise Southgate because I enjoy it, or because I dislike the guy, or because I'm anti-English, or whatever else. I loved the guy as a footballer and captain and would love to see him lift a trophy. I just genuinely think sometimes he could do better.
 
Uwefuchs said:
You don't know that the Southgate critics on here are brainwashed by the right wing media either though.
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I haven't said if the critics on this board are brainwashed or otherwise, so I'm not sure what relevance that comment of yours has?

I have simply stated the fact that right wing agitators have had it in for southgate, a good place to start in this debate would be your agreement or disagreement on this. Happy to find examples to prove it if you do disagree.

I've stated that many of the comments I hear, are the same comments I see from these agitators. We all know how it works, some people buy into it, then repeat it ad nauseum to their mates at the pub and it grows legs and replicates and becomes "the truth".

The idea that we have the greatest squad ever is not true, it's quite clear where the gaps in quality are and its quite clear that our better technical players are largely inexperienced and will be better players in 2-4 years.

The idea that southgate is a failure despite breaking all records other than trophies won, is obviously ludicrous, because every other manager bar Alf must be a bigger failure. It's disingenuous to claim our second most successful manager is a failure but that is what we hear on here.

The idea that losing a final to Italy is somehow worse than a manager who lost to Iceland, or got our golden generation knocked out of the world cup, or failed to qualify for '94 is an example of confirmation bias, that bias was seeded somewhere.

Football and football supporters have ALWAYS been influenced by their socio-politico environment, people do not live in a bubble. We have been through an incredibly Machiavellian decade where social media has been used to manipulate and pollute the conversation, where it has been utilised to divide and conquer. To pretend otherwise and think that somehow, football and football fans are immune to this simply isn't true. Some (not all) fans have been polluted by a view of southgate as a lefty, a supporter of BLM and LGBQT+ rights, and I'm afraid for some people Southgate could win back to back trophies and there would still be excuses.

At no point have I talked the B...t word, and I have never said ALL anti-southgate fans are rightwing nutjobs, but, I bet you most of the hardcore right hate southgate. To deny the influence of media and the socio-political culture we live in, seems like the easy option, pretending that football supporters live in a bubble and don't get upset at players taking the knee, or waving a pride flag is disingenuous, even if you don't personally feel that way
 
Just to pick up one of your points there. I wouldn't personally claim that losing a final to Italy was akin to not qualifying for the 94 world cup, but nor would I claim it to be the success it wasn't.

Triumph and disaster etc.

You can appreciate Southgate for getting as far as he's got, while at the same time wanting more and asking questions when we fall just short.

At the risk of being too reductionist, the important outcome is who takes home the trophy.
 
Bernieslavenschin said:
I wouldn't classify a loss to France as a failure necessarily, but if we show no ability to change the system while losing the game, or go 1-0 up and shell up and end up losing, I think we should ask questions.
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Sometimes the better teams win, that's football. Sometimes we don't have the players to win enough individual battles and have an answer.

Bernieslavenschin said:
My point is that while he's done well to get to those stages, there has to be criticism where it's due, and the performance in both of those knockout matches deserves examination.
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OF course we should examine each result good and bad. But lets be honest about it, we over acheived reaching a semi in 2018. That was a squad that was going through a transition as the old guard of lampard, gerrard and rooney had stayed far too long, the players that replaced them going into that tournament didn't have the international and WC/EC experience necessary to change things. Croatia were in their prime and were just a bit too smart in possession for us. Italy they were too smart out of possession, we were a little bit more experienced, but still going through transition with more technical players coming into the squad and playing a more possession based game. On another day we could have won it. We started well and got a goal. They changed things and got one back, we changed things and we ended up neutralising each other. The difference though was that the Italy defenders were better out of possession than us, they knew how to use the dark arts and saved themselves from defeat with clever fouls in the right areas. That game was tight and could have gone either way, it didn't go ours, but it wasn't a criminal performance.

Bernieslavenschin said:
To reference your points about social media, I think there's a danger of just assuming one side is fully against and one side is fully for.
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I'm not sure how many times on this thread I have specifically stated that isn't the case, but I'm happy to say it again, that wasn't my point.

Bernieslavenschin said:
I think there's a not insignificant group of people who aren't necessarily Southgate haters, but are rightly critical of certain aspects of this England team.
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Or to put it another way, you are agreeing that there is also a not insignificant group of people who ARE southgate haters (due to his socio-political leanings). I mean no one is denying that GBeebies etc are flooding social media with anti-southgate comments, and no one is denying that they do it because it works to some degree.
 
Nothing had changed yet. Southgate has got England beating the teams we should beat. We're not losing banana skin matches. We have yet to beat a decent team in a knockout. We haven't won a match where we weren't favourite in a competition. We had the easiest run to the SF in 2018 where we were beaten by a good but not great Croatia team. All the good teams were in the other half of the draw. We had a home Euros and player nobody good until the final where we were beaten.

The QF will be Southgate's chance to prove he can win a match against a better team. Personally, I think he is scared against better teams. He won't attack for fear of being beaten but our attack is our strength. We're poor at the back so he overloads midfield and defence against a dangerous side. He has Kane doing deep which means no outlet, nothing sticks and the opposition gets unlimited tries until they break us down. He would be better using our strength and taking the game to the opposition. We might not win them all. We could even get hammered but if we win one, and it's a final then it's worth it and it's better than always limply falling to defeat. Even if it's not a final, it might give the players the confidence to know they can beat the better teams. If we attacked and beat France then what would be left to fear?
 
Bernieslavenschin said:
You can appreciate Southgate for getting as far as he's got, while at the same time wanting more and asking questions when we fall just short.
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We always want more as fans

Bernieslavenschin said:
At the risk of being too reductionist, the important outcome is who takes home the trophy.
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that is too reductionist, was it unimportant that Wales made the euro semi final? or when Iceland made the quarters? We have to be honest about the England national team, it has spent most of the last 50 years outside of the top ten in the world and had made just two failed semi finals and no finals during that time, before southgate came along. The direction of travel compared to recent performance is vital, he's lifted us to a point where it is actually realistic to win, rather than just blind faith. That is in itself a victory
 
Scrug said:
Through to the next round. Hasn’t always been guaranteed in the past.
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We very rarely fail to qualify from the WC group stages. Once in my lifetime I think. (Although we weren't even there for 3 of the tournaments I suppose).
 
Nano said:
He won't attack for fear of being beaten but our attack is our strength. We're poor at the back so he overloads midfield and defence against a dangerous side.
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But isn't that the pragmatic and sensible option. Trying to play expansive football and leaving Harry Maguire and John Stones 2-vs-2 against top class players isn't a sensible approach.
 
BoroMart said:
Sometimes the better teams win, that's football. Sometimes we don't have the players to win enough individual battles and have an answer.


OF course we should examine each result good and bad. But lets be honest about it, we over acheived reaching a semi in 2018. That was a squad that was going through a transition as the old guard of lampard, gerrard and rooney had stayed far too long, the players that replaced them going into that tournament didn't have the international and WC/EC experience necessary to change things. Croatia were in their prime and were just a bit too smart in possession for us. Italy they were too smart out of possession, we were a little bit more experienced, but still going through transition with more technical players coming into the squad and playing a more possession based game. On another day we could have won it. We started well and got a goal. They changed things and got one back, we changed things and we ended up neutralising each other. The difference though was that the Italy defenders were better out of possession than us, they knew how to use the dark arts and saved themselves from defeat with clever fouls in the right areas. That game was tight and could have gone either way, it didn't go ours, but it wasn't a criminal performance.


I'm not sure how many times on this thread I have specifically stated that isn't the case, but I'm happy to say it again, that wasn't my point.


Or to put it another way, you are agreeing that there is also a not insignificant group of people who ARE southgate haters (due to his socio-political leanings). I mean no one is denying that GBeebies etc are flooding social media with anti-southgate comments, and no one is denying that they do it because it works to some degree.
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I'm not getting drawn into a discussion about "socio-political leanings" as seems to be your want.

I have not personally seen what you are describing, but I haven't looked for it (I don't really use social media), and my criticisms are seperate of whatever is going on from that point of view.
 
Rofesleg said:
We very rarely fail to qualify from the WC group stages. Once in my lifetime I think. (Although we weren't even there for 3 of the tournaments I suppose).
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Another way to look at it though is that we don't usually finish top of our group. This is the first time since 2006, we did it in 1990, 86, 66 and 54.

So top of the group just 6 times in 15 world cups that we qualified for.
 
BoroMart said:
We always want more as fans


that is too reductionist, was it unimportant that Wales made the euro semi final? or when Iceland made the quarters? We have to be honest about the England national team, it has spent most of the last 50 years outside of the top ten in the world and had made just two failed semi finals and no finals during that time, before southgate came along. The direction of travel compared to recent performance is vital, he's lifted us to a point where it is actually realistic to win, rather than just blind faith. That is in itself a victory
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If a country with a population 20-200 times less than ours celebrates a quarter or semi that's up to them. As it's up to our fans if they celebrate the same result.

It's as easy to get carried away by the swing of public perception from being in the gutter to walking on the moon based on a favourable draw and a semi final loss to the first good team we faced as it is to be overly critical of the team, but at the end of the day in 20 years time I won't be celebrating either of the last 2 cups, rather I'll be wondering what could have been.
 
Bernieslavenschin said:
I'm not getting drawn into a discussion about "socio-political leanings" as seems to be your want.

I have not personally seen what you are describing, but I haven't looked for it (I don't really use social media), and my criticisms are seperate of whatever is going on from that point of view.
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But you do accept that football fans don't live in a bubble where the rest of their lives doesn't influence football, right?

I mean to deny the existence of socio-politics in fans just sounds like the easy way out of this.
 
Laughing said:
Some folks on this thread must have an anti southgate agenda. It's ok to criticise, but my god some of the "opinions" have to be coming form somewhere other than what he has achieved, surely!
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If we were Brazil with a history winning the cups and reaching finals then fair enough, but he has gone above and beyond any manager in 54 years. That's undeniable, so why the hate...
 
BoroMart said:
Denmark and Germany
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Midtable quality teams, we were at home and one of them their best player had very recently nearly died. We were clear favourites for both games.

BoroMart said:
But isn't that the pragmatic and sensible option. Trying to play expansive football and leaving Harry Maguire and John Stones 2-vs-2 against top class players isn't a sensible approach.
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It might be pragmatic but it isn't sensible. I guess at best it is avoiding defeat to give us a 50% chance of winning a penalty shootout. It gives us a close to 0% chance of winning a game outright.

Is giving Mbappe et al 20 half chances and to score 1 but England's forwards no chances better than giving England's forwards some chances and France's some chances? Only one approach has a real possibility of winning outright.

We see in the PL the teams that sit deep for 90 mins to try and stop Man City scoring and they usually get beat comfortably. The ones that are successful are the ones that try and win. City are the better team so they still beat most teams but you have to at least give yourself a chance.
 
BoroMart said:
But you do accept that football fans don't live in a bubble where the rest of their lives doesn't influence football, right?

I mean to deny the existence of socio-politics in fans just sounds like the easy way out of this.
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You've made an inference from my post that simply wasn't there.

Bernieslavenschin said:
I think there's a not insignificant group of people who aren't necessarily Southgate haters, but are rightly critical of certain aspects of this England team.
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To interpret this as somehow agreeing that the group you keep going on about exists ( I genuinely couldn't care less whether it does or not) is just wrong.
I have literally no opinion on this group, it's existence or otherwise. I don't visit social media, nor do I intend to have my opinions polarised by it.
 
BoroMart said:
If we were Brazil with a history winning the cups and reaching finals then fair enough, but he has gone above and beyond any manager in 54 years. That's undeniable, so why the hate...
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I have no idea mate. It has to be anti-southgate. No level headed opinion would suggest if he doesn't win the world cup he has failed or that he should of won the euros. I accept that some feel he isn't adventurous enough, though I think he is pragmatic and that pragmatism generally works.

It's a bit odd.
 
people talking about playing qf's vs france. Senegal are better than iran usa and wales by some margin. its a tough game. france will play argentina maybe. i back the argies in that one.
 
Dynamo Kev said:
people talking about playing qf's vs france. Senegal are better than iran usa and wales by some margin. its a tough game. france will play argentina maybe. i back the argies in that one.
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I think a lot depends on how Argentina turn up tonight.
They need to start hitting the ground running. France starting to look dangerous.
 
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