For a so-called company man, Southgate has a radical, rebellious streak
England’s caretaker manager is not in thrall to the FA – which gives him an edge as he picks up the pieces of the latest crisis to hit the national set-up
Gareth Southgate has often been described as a typical Football Association man by the kind of people who secretly believe that it is their professional destiny never to be offered a job of any description at all by the Football Association.
In fact, Southgate has often shown a rebellious streak, or at the very least a single-mindedness, that might not be at first apparent in the man tasked with naming the England squad today for the next two World Cup qualifiers after the abrupt departure of Sam Allardyce. Three years into his second spell at the FA, he has certainly never been in thrall to the governing body.
His refusal to be the manager stopgap post-Roy Hodgson this summer was not the first time that Southgate had decided that he would not take a job under any circumstances just because it happened to be the FA. There has always been the strong inference that he can walk away from it if he so chooses, and there have been times when that has been more than just a possibility.
When, in 2012, he quit his job as the FA’s head of elite development, which he had taken just 18 months earlier, he also gave up the chance of becoming technical director, a role which Dan Ashworth has subsequently turned into a serious powerbase.
After he was appointed coach of the England Under-21s in 2013, Southgate’s team’s performance in the European Championship last year – lost two, won one, out in the group stages – was not exactly the great platform to launch a candidature for the senior job, if indeed that was what he wanted. But what does he want? Having ruled himself out the interim role this summer, you have to ask whether he even sees the next four games as a route to the job on a permanent basis.
For most coaches, being handed the England job mid-crisis at the FA would be a life-defining moment, but one suspects that will not be the case for Southgate. He has never looked like a man prepared to take a job at all costs, both from a temperamental point of view and, one suspects, because he has the financial security to be selective about the job and the life he wants. In football, that kind of independence also means a man can afford to have radical thoughts.
Southgate is not beholden to anyone, which you might say makes him more disposed to make difficult decisions than, for instance, the man whom he succeeds. Wayne Rooney will continue as captain but that does not guarantee him a place in the team, the assurance that Allardyce as good as made after his single match in charge against Slovakia.
There was a definite inference that Southgate left Eric Dier out of the under-21s squad for the championships last year because of the Tottenham man’s request to withdraw from the squad for two games in November 2014. Southgate batted away the suggestion that the two were related, but it was hard to escape the conclusion that was the case.
There was more than one occasion when, as a player, he demonstrated his independence. In May 2003, when the England squad played a friendly against South Africa in Durban, Southgate was one of eight who decided against flying to Johannesburg to meet Nelson Mandela in preference to preparing for the game.
It turned into one of those incidents that periodically engulf the FA, with the allegation that the players were showing disrespect to Mandela, although they had been told that the trip was optional. As usual, the chief critics were those who could not make up their mind whether they wanted the England squad to play international football matches or function as some kind of diplomatic adjunct, with the game itself a secondary concern.
Privately, the players realised that their sole function was to provide the backdrop for the true purpose of the trip – that being the picture of David Beckham next to Mandela, and so it proved. Publicly, Southgate was the only one brave enough to say, with respect, that he was there to play football, and while that might be unpalatable for some, he wanted to give himself the best opportunity to make the Euro 2004 squad.
Those were the height of Beckham’s days of pre-eminence at the FA, when it was said he decided what colour kit the team wore and, remarkably, there was barely a murmur of surprise when he turned up for the trip to South Africa with his hair plaited into cornrows. At the time the assumption was that that was just what Beckham did – and yet, looking back, it was Southgate who was the one thinking straight.
His unassuming public face is often mistakenly identified as a reflection of his personality – a perception he is happy to encourage. In reality, it makes him difficult to read. “Nice guy, bit boring” was how he described himself in the closest thing he has done to an autobiography, the book Woody and Nord he wrote with his childhood friend Andy Woodman, the lowerleague goalkeeper now coaching at Crystal Palace.
If you listen closely, however, there is often an edge. After his under-21s’ elimination last year, Southgate was asked why there seemed to be no natural leaders of the calibre of player he had represented England alongside, the examples given being Paul Ince, Tony Adams and Gary Neville.
“I’d say Ince and Tony are in that category,” he replied.
It was Southgate who was said to have taken charge unofficially of the Middlesbrough squad as their relationship with Steve McClaren fractured. McClaren was about to take over England after the summer of 2006. For him it was the ultimate job. For Southgate, you wonder if the same is true.