Savvy Southgate hasn’t put a foot wrong
disappointing World Cup, why he stayed on despite having won the World Cup in Brazil in 2014. Where is he going to replicate that feeling?
How could a club title compare to steering a successful national team across decades? And Southgate has not experienced anything like Low’s success. Yet.
Different if you’re Aime Jacquet. When he won the World Cup with France in 1998, he was done as a manager. He stood down 17 days later and moved to a job as the French federation’s technical director, which he occupied until his retirement in 2006. But that was vocational, too. Jacquet took responsibility for developing the next generation of French footballers.
What he didn’t want was to earnestly plug away trying to win unrewarding club matches that could never compare to the elation of World Cup victory at the Stade de France. As an aside last week, Southgate said he probably did a better job in his first year at Middlesbrough than he has so far with England. But he will know the difference in importance. If he succeeds in bringing football home, why would he want to be anywhere else? DESPITE all protestations to the contrary, there remains a misguided assumption that if England lose to Croatia tomorrow, the knives will be out in the press box for Gareth Southgate. The perception is still that the media are just waiting for the moment to turn on England’s manager. But it won’t happen. And here is why. Almost uniquely in this campaign, everything Southgate has done has met with approval. His squad, his team, his tactics, his manmanagement . . . it is universally accepted that England are on the right course. Even when he made a controversial call by resting nine players against Belgium, and then lost the game, it rebounded in his favour. Had England then gone out to Colombia having failed to win the group, yes, he would have been criticised for losing momentum, and he knows that. But he wouldn’t have been torn apart. There would have been no calls for his resignation and there certainly won’t be now, no matter the result tomorrow. How can a manager be castigated for decisions that have mainly been endorsed? Playing out from the back is dangerous — but it is also what most commentators have wanted England to do for years. So if, or when, an England defender eventually makes a mistake doing just that and it leads to a goal — and we all hope that will be in a friendly some time in the future, and not the World Cup final — how can anyone blame the manager? ‘That fool Southgate — he did exactly what I was calling for him to do, and now look what’s happened.’ See? It doesn’t make sense. And this England regime is all
about sense. From a personal point of view? Early in the season, I said Kieran Trippier was the best English crosser of the ball since David Beckham, and would be in my starting line-up. Southgate (left) found a clever way of getting him, and Kyle Walker, into the team. I advocated Ashley Young as England’s best left wing-back option. Southgate decided the same. I’ve always liked three at the back; so does he. I’ve always thought England should prioritise defenders who can pass and step into midfield: so does he. My World Cup squad and Southgate’s differed by two players: neither are in the starting line-up anyway, so who cares? My starting XI for the World Cup was exactly the same as his. I’d have stuck with Raheem Sterling throughout, and he has, too. So why would I turn on this manager that I’ve agreed with every step of the way? I didn’t back him making nine changes against Belgium, but the end justifies the means, the first team stayed fresh and losing ended up fortuitously in England’s favour. So, by luck or judgment, he got that right, too. We all know England have had the breaks in Russia, but Roy Hodgson got one when England played Iceland in a knockout game at Euro 2016 and that did not end well. Fabio Capello’s group at the 2010 World Cup was Algeria, Slovenia and the United States, and somehow he contrived to come second and ended up playing Germany. A draw at home to Croatia would have got Steve McClaren to the 2008 European Championship and England failed to get it. And in 2002, by not going for the win against Nigeria, Sven Goran Eriksson ended up meeting Brazil in the quarter-finals, rather than Turkey. So other England managers have had inviting opportunities, and not taken them. There will be no backlash here. It is not just the players who are investing in the methodology of Southgate.