Gareth Southgate: England’s nearly man was still a success

When Gareth Southgate took over as England manager back in September 2016, the job had become a laughing stock.

Sam Allardyce – only appointed to the role that July – had quit after just 67 days and one game in charge over alleged comments he made to undercover newspaper reporters.

His predecessor Roy Hodgson had left following England’s disastrous last-16 exit at Euro 2016 in France.

Southgate quits latest: Frontrunners emerge for England job

Now, Southgate has gone too, following defeat to Spain in the final of Euro 2024.

A safe pair of hands

The Football Association turned to Southgate, then the U21s manager and considered a safe pair of hands, to see them through a rocky period.

He initially turned the offer down, telling L’Equipe in 2022 he had seen what the pressures of the job did to other managers.

Southgate’s experience was immense. He had made more than 500 senior appearances during a 16-year playing career – mostly spent in the Premier League – and had won the League Cup twice.

From day one, he calmly answered endless questions from the press while offering little for any of them to turn into negative headlines.

He seemed unfazed by the hype surrounding the national team and its manager, a legacy of his time with the U21s and a 57-cap international career. He seemed to know what the job entailed.

Southgate clearly gave the impression of being a decent man – the media described him as someone you could go for a pint with.

At 46, he was younger than most England bosses and he quickly reshaped the team in his image.

He got lucky by inheriting exciting young talent – including the Tottenham pair of Harry Kane and Dele Alli – plus Raheem Sterling, John Stones, Jordan Pickford and others he knew from his three years with the U21s.

A World Cup semi-final

Southgate’s team was unbeaten as it qualified for the 2018 World Cup in Russia, topping a group including Scotland.

The tournament itself was a revelation for Three Lions fans, who had mostly been brought up on a diet of stodgy England sides starting slowly and blundering their way through tournaments.

They beat Tunisia 2-1 in Southgate’s first tournament match, courtesy of a trademark late goal from striker Kane, and followed that up with a 6-1 victory over Panama (with a Kane hat-trick) to seal a place in the knockout stage.

That, of course, meant the possibility of the dreaded penalties – so often the footballing equivalent of kryptonite for previous England sides – but if any further proof was needed that Southgate’s team was different, they knocked out Colombia on spot-kicks in the round of 16, England’s first shootout win since 1996.

They then cruised past Sweden into the semi-finals – a first at a World Cup since 1990.

The 2-1 defeat against Croatia in Moscow was to prove a forewarning of future disappointment.

England took an early lead through a Kieran Trippier free-kick, then missed chances to add to it before their opponents, inspired by the tireless veteran Luka Modric, equalised in the second half.

Southgate, whose unflappability was seen as an asset, now appeared somewhat inert, making only one change before the end of normal time and ordering no obvious tweaks to tactics or formation.

The players seemed to fall back on their advantage rather than push for a second goal, perhaps simply unsure how to close out such a huge match. After all, it was England’s first tournament semi-final since Euro 96, in which Southgate took and missed the decisive penalty.

Whatever went wrong, the Croatians took the lead in extra-time and held out for a deserved victory and a place in their first final.

However disappointing the ending, England fans were given a glimpse of an exciting new era, as a likeable team, led by an affable, placid manager, finally appeared to be more than the sum of its parts.

The cult of Southgate grows

The players grabbed most of the adoration, but Southgate became a cult figure, famous for his touchline waistcoat.

He won, perhaps inevitably, the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Coach Award and a year later was made an OBE for services to football.

An Atomic Kitten hit was re-worked in homage to him and eventually, his career would be turned into a stage play starring Joseph Fiennes.

The nation’s football fans, newly energised, endured more semi-final disappointment that year as they lost to the Netherlands in the first edition of the Nations League, having got past Croatia and Spain in qualifying.

So near but so far at the Euros

Euro 2020, postponed by a year because of COVID, was the golden chance for Southgate’s England to end the nation’s years of hurt – which were up to 55 by the time the tournament kicked off.

For a start, England were one of the pre-tournament favourites, their standing buoyed by those two recent near-misses.

Southgate could pick from a glittering array of stars from the Premier League, held by some to be the best in the world.

After all, didn’t Pep Guardiola’s dominant Manchester City side boast England’s Kyle Walker, Stones, Phil Foden and Sterling?

In addition, England played all but one of their seven games at Wembley.

In the final against Italy they again took an early lead, this time through Luke Shaw, but rather than building on it, they again appeared content to defend it.

They were eventually caught, first by Italy’s half-time changes, and then by an equaliser. A goalless extra-time was followed by an agonising 3-2 defeat on penalties.

But this was no ordinary shootout reverse. This time, Southgate sent on young attackers Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho minutes before the end of the extra half-hour, with penalties in mind. They both missed, along with Bukayo Saka.

The trio were subjected to vile racist online abuse afterwards.

The final was also marred by violent disorder beforehand as thousands of people without tickets tried to storm the national stadium to see the match and tens of thousands more created scenes of near-anarchy nearby, in what Baroness Casey described as an episode of “national shame”.

More of the same in Qatar

The 2022 World Cup in Qatar followed what critics of Southgate had begun to identify as a familiar pattern of cruising through qualifying and the group stage of the tournament, before being eliminated by the first strong side England encountered in the knockouts.

This time it was holders France, in an agonising 2-1 quarter-final defeat that featured a rare missed penalty by the usually infallible Kane, who ballooned his effort over the bar as England trailed in the second half.

Again, Southgate appeared unable or unwilling to shake up his team as the players searched for an equaliser, waiting until the 79th minute to bring on a substitute.

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Still not coming home

So to Euro 2024 and both more and less of the same; topping Group C despite two draws, but this summer in Germany, Southgate’s side needed a dramatic wonder goal from Jude Bellingham to force extra-time and a 2-1 win over Slovakia in the last 16, before beating Switzerland on penalties.

The manager changed the team’s formation and they played their best football of the tournament so far in the 2-1 semi-final win over the Netherlands, but needed another dramatic late strike, this time from Ollie Watkins, to seal a place in their second successive Euros final and their second overall under Southgate.

There was no shame in losing to Spain, the best team in the tournament, but the loss cemented the view some have of Southgate as the man who was good, but not quite good enough.

This time, fans and media alike were much less forgiving of England’s dour football than in earlier tournaments.

So why was so much of their football pedestrian? Did the coach insist on keeping the handbrake on? Was he simply too reluctant – as ever – to make substitutions? (He became more willing to make early changes in the last two rounds, with remarkable success).

Whenever criticised, the man himself simply shrugged and said, with the team still in the tournament, what was the problem?

Was he the latest England manager guilty of stubbornly picking his 11 best players even though they weren’t gelling?

Were the players to blame, or was it the intensity and length of the Premier League season, the lack of pitches for youngsters or the need for a winter break? Whichever one you choose, it’s time for another spin on English football’s tournament failure excuse-selector.

An immensely impressive record

Was Gareth Southgate a success? Clearly, he was.

In fact, he was a massive, overwhelming success, who put all his post-Sir Alf Ramsey predecessors in the shade. He guided the team to four successive tournament quarter-finals, two of which became semi-finals and two finals. That’s more than the so-called golden generation of David Beckham, Paul Scholes, Michael Owen, Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard, Rio Ferdinand et al achieved. More, indeed, than Sir Alf managed – a World Cup win.

It’s easy to forget England failed to qualify for a Euros and three World Cups in the 70s, 80s and 90s.

England, a team who struggled to win knockout games before he took over, won nine of them with him in charge, including two penalty shootouts, which won’t appear quite so daunting to whoever takes over.

That none of those tournaments ended the 58 years of hurt was partly down to him, for sure, but there were plenty of other culprits, too.

If the next England manager matches Southgate’s achievements, England fans should be mighty pleased.