The managerial merry-go-round

I'm sick of these Euro final appearances too. Southgate out!

He wants a break apparently. He’s also not English and doesn’t need the money.
And why would he want a bunch of mad English people raving at him every time there’s a tournament, ruining his legacy.

It's a lot less effort than being a club manager.

I'd like something more shiny and new. I'm bored of this guy.

Southgate has been successful because he's had better players than those that have preceded him. That's just luck, he hasn't developed them personally.

It's always the best generation of players.

People always say that. But this one really is. How many of the players from the generations preceding this of the 40 years would get into this first XI? Seaman might. Shearer or Lineker potentially. Rio maybe. Pearce. Not so sure about the rest. For certs I wouldn't pick Lampard, Adams, Platt or Gerrard, and I am not sure Beckham, Robson or Terry makes the cut either. And that's 40 years worth of talent compared to this year's worth.

Players get fitter and better technically and look better because of better pitches. But that's universal.

Scholes ahead of Bellingham or Foden. Shearer ahead of Kane. Ferdinand and Campbell at centre half. Gerrard or Lampard ahead of Mainoo. Any number of keepers (even 1990 Shilton) ahead of Pickford.

No. An absolute coward of a player in an England shirt, and a big part of the reason why that team didn't do a lot better than its talent merited.

Scholes was largely crap for England.

If you like.

Ashley Cole ahead of Trippier/Shaw. Pearce on the left of the back three. Prime Trippier or a few others at right wing back.

Used badly.

The thing is, you can pick various players over all the years out and a case can be made (though even that's not easy) and say they may have got in but as a collective we never had this amount of quality all playing at the same time.

Haven't we? Still feels unbalanced. Good players in some areas, outstanding in a few, struggling in others.

Gazza? Michael Owen? Stuart Pearce. Sounds like a good core to me.

Anyway, we shall see if our shithousing works and we walk off with something this time. Probably not, but you never know. Either way, I have a lot of time for Southgate as I have met and talked to him many times and always found him to be delightful... (ergo a very long time ago...)

Chicago: Pragmatic about the whole thing.

Another way to look at it is find an actual pre-Southgate England line up that you would swap for the one that beat the Netherlands, or against Denmark/Ukraine in the last Euros or whatever.