Gareth Southgate, England's most successful manager since Alf Ramsey, has resigned, and Gregg Berhalter is the only name not in the frame. Thank heavens for small mercies...
Citation needed on the consensus being that England should have won the euro 2020 final against Italy. At what point? Because they were playing at home and on paper? Because that was not clear during the game at all.
Consensus of opinion amongst a number fans, pundits, and journalists that I happen to agree with. Swap Southgate with Mancini and England win it fairly comfortably, in my opinion. Which I also concede could be completely wrong, but football is mainly opinions that are invariably wrong! Similarly with Croatia in the WC semi-final. Similarly the Netherlands in the quarter-final in this tournament. All three games are symptomatic of Southgate's poor in-game, reactive and ultra-conservative management. In all three England were fairly comfortably in control in the first half then conceded possession in the second half as they sat back. I'm not saying England were the better side and deserved to win, they were outplayed in each of those second halves, but that's on Southgate.
I just haven’t seen that consensus, in fact the exact opposite. Most of the coverage seems to match my feeling of the game: England scores after a couple of minutes and parks the bus, frustrating Italy, that eventually sorts out how to get through, creating high quality chances. England only wakes up briefly in extra time. Just about every stat bears this out. I am genuinely curious if the English media didn’t see it this way, because if so, the team has worse problems than southgate.
Citation needed on the consensus being that England should have won the euro 2020 final against Italy. At what point? Because they were playing at home and on paper? Because that was not clear during the game at all.
Consensus of opinion amongst a number fans, pundits, and journalists that I happen to agree with. Swap Southgate with Mancini and England win it fairly comfortably, in my opinion. Which I also concede could be completely wrong, but football is mainly opinions that are invariably wrong! Similarly with Croatia in the WC semi-final. Similarly the Netherlands in the quarter-final in this tournament. All three games are symptomatic of Southgate's poor in-game, reactive and ultra-conservative management. In all three England were fairly comfortably in control in the first half then conceded possession in the second half as they sat back. I'm not saying England were the better side and deserved to win, they were outplayed in each of those second halves, but that's on Southgate.
I just haven’t seen that consensus, in fact the exact opposite. Most of the coverage seems to match my feeling of the game: England scores after a couple of minutes and parks the bus, frustrating Italy, that eventually sorts out how to get through, creating high quality chances. England only wakes up briefly in extra time. Just about every stat bears this out. I am genuinely curious if the English media didn’t see it this way, because if so, the team has worse problems than southgate.
It’s hard to sort out counterfactuals like that, but I will agree that southgate is an awful coach