The snobs might not like it but Southgate would be the perfect choice for United
There are obstacles to the appointment of Gareth Southgate as the next manager of Manchester United. Not least among them is that he is english, which, according to the inverted snobbery of the time, is viewed by many as an impediment.
Then there is, as Gary Neville has pointed out, the question of timing and the impossibility of Southgate taking the United job before england’s involvement in the european Championship comes to an end.
Southgate’s detractors will scoff at this notion but that might be as late as Sunday July 14, the date of the final at Berlin’s Olympiastadion.
Southgate could not say ‘yes’ to United before england are knocked out. There would be too many potential conflicts of interest. Julen Lopetegui thought he could accept the real Madrid job and still lead Spain into the 2018 World Cup. he was disabused of that notion very quickly.
Nor, aside from the issue of his englishness, would Southgate be the popular choice at United. We live in the football era of the cult of personality and, even though Southgate has plenty of personality, it is not the kind that those who shout the loudest warm to.
That is one of the reasons why Thomas Tuchel is the bookmakers’ favourite for the job, even though Bayern Munich have failed to win the Bundesliga title for the first time in 12 years on his watch and he would be spectacularly unsuited to the culture United’s new minority owner Sir Jim ratcliffe wants to establish.
None of that changes the fact — unpopular opinion though it may be — that Southgate is the outstanding candidate to take over from erik ten hag at Old Trafford this summer. he is the man ratcliffe desperately needs to lead his resurrection of english football’s moribund giant.
There was a time when managing a leading club was viewed as an essential apprenticeship for the england job, but that order has changed with the balance of power now having shifted from international football towards the domestic game. It is now more pertinent to argue Southgate’s experience as england manager and all the pressures that has brought, all the man-management issues it has thrown up, all the diplomatic challenges it has brought off the pitch, is the perfect apprenticeship for the United job.
Managing england is one of the only jobs that could prepare a coach for managing United and Southgate has been doing just that for more than seven years. he has taken everything his critics have thrown at him and he has thrived.
his husbandry of england has established him as one of the best man-managers in the game, a quality that has become more and more vital in an age when the players have so much of the power. Southgate has made it enjoyable to play for england again.
United need someone to work the same magic at Old Trafford, where the joy of pulling on the shirt disappeared long ago. Ten hag is clearly a decent man but whether he understands his players — or wants to understand them — seems a thornier question. Under the Dutchman, playing for United looks about as much fun as going to a fat camp. except no one loses any weight.
Southgate has got experience of taking a job after a succession of higherprofile and apparently better qualified managers have failed in it. england were a laughing stock when he took over in 2016.
Let’s not forget that. Glenn hoddle, Kevin Keegan, Serie A-winning Sven Goran eriksson and Champions League- winning Fabio Capello all tried and failed to get england beyond the quarter-finals of a major tour-nament for a cursed, fallow spell that lasted 20 years.
Southgate came along and led england to the semi-finals of the 2018 World Cup, the final of euro 2020 and the last eight of the 2022 World Cup.
With him at the helm, england are favourites to win the euros in Germany this summer. Southgate has turned england from being no-hopers to contenders again.
The same troubled ancestry exists at United. Since Sir Alex Ferguson retired, the Glazers have been through some of the biggest names in the game, including Louis van Gaal and Jose Mourinho. They have given them money and freedom to spend and all have failed to turn the super tanker around. It was not all their fault. The
Glazers did not have the wit to give their managers the support they needed and handicapped David Moyes, Van Gaal and Mourinho with executives such as ed Woodward and richard Arnold, who were conspicuously out of their depth in football.
ratcliffe, to his credit, has already gone a long way to fixing that. he is building a football operations structure that includes highly respected, proven operators like Dan Ashworth, the incoming sporting director, and Jason Wilcox, the new technical director; a structure into which a smart, intelligent, collegiate man like Southgate would fit perfectly.
The days of the patriarch in english football are over. The days when one man, the manager, dictates everything to everybody else are all but over. At the new United, Southgate would be closer to a role as first among equals, which would suit him and the club.
The same would apply to another leading contender, Graham Potter, and it is easy to see a scenario where Southgate takes over at Old Trafford and Potter takes over from Southgate as england boss.
Which brings us back to the question of the mechanics of Southgate’s arrival.
Whatever happens in the FA Cup final between United and Manchester City on May 25, it seems highly improbable that Ten hag will survive in the job much beyond the end of the month.
If ratcliffe and the team around him are as smart as they think they are, they will already have identified leading playing targets to bolster a United squad that has been left horrendously threadbare by injuries and more
PHIL FODEN will accept his Football Writers’ Association Footballer of the Year award on Thursday. He got my vote. My top five players of the 2023-24 season, in order, are: Foden, Declan Rice, Martin Odegaard, Cole Palmer and Rodri.
than a decade of appalling recruitment.
In a system where Southgate is only one part of the structure, rather than the man who dictates everything, the disadvantages of him only being able to take up the manager’s position at United in mid- July are far from insuperable.
After so many years in the wilderness, it is worth waiting a few weeks for the man who can lead United back towards their promised land.