![]() Southgate has lost two games out of 26 in the past two years. Southgate has taken England to two semi-finals in five years, after two semi-finals in the previous half a century. Southgate has the best win rate of any England manager to oversee 50 games. ![]() ![]() It is necessary here to state once again some very simple facts. Somehow the only manager to really get this job since Terry Venables has become another note in that never-ending story another managerial reign that tells us a great deal more about England and the deep cultural delusions of English football than it does about tactics, formations, penalty shootouts and all the rest. ![]() Looking back now at the Golden Waistcoat days, the summer of love from Moscow to Kaliningrad, when Gareth became, briefly, the perfect man, it is striking to think the dominant note of his time with England may well end up being the current one: betrayal, enmity, howls of displeasure. Who knows, he may even be done after the World Cup.īut this is not the interesting part, is it? What is most startling about England’s dip in form is the violence of the reaction, the squeals of genuine rage that have accompanied not just this defeat but the victories that preceded it. There is a natural lifespan to these things. It takes a special kind of expertise to build a second iteration of a successful team to do so without a lull or a falling-off, that’s elite territory. Photograph: Chris Brunskill/Fantasista/Getty ImagesĪgain this is no excuse. Stones passed his time on the pitch attending a series of unconnected events – crank calls, weddings, book launches – while the flames in his rear-view mirror raged.Īdam Szalai gives John Stones a tough time at Molineux. But at least Wright was still going to an actual fire. There is a statue outside Molineux of the great Billy Wright, who was famously described by Geoffrey Green of the Times as “like a fire engine going to the wrong fire” after being befuddled by Hungary at Wembley in 1953. Harry Kane was smothered once again, Attila Szalai spending much of the game grabbing Kane’s shirt collar as if the striker owed him money.Īt the other end John Stones was given a traumatic time by Adam Szalai, who enjoyed himself immensely. And Southgate knew what was coming because Hungary had already been bruising opponents in Budapest. That is the job: problem solving, clarity, motivation. It is the role of the manager to find solutions to these things. We might suggest that England supporters and parts of the media have become like a toxic partner, hovering malevolently, pouncing gleefully on each mistake, right down to racially abusing the players for losing a tournament final, then wondering why they might have fallen away one year on.īut again none of this really washes. We could suggest that, had the nation celebrated Southgate over the past year for his unprecedented success, as opposed to constantly finding fault, he might be a better, more confident England manager now. We could say that, had England’s supporters cheered the players rather than booing them intermittently for the final three‑quarters of the game, the team might have been more inspired. We could say the squad was tired and depleted, which is true but then so is everyone else. There are excuses that could be made for England’s wretched performance against a highly motivated Hungary team on Tuesday.
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