In qualifiers at least, Gareth Southgate has built a body of work to rebuke any doubters. Of the 33 such games he has faced as England manager, he has overseen 27 victories and 112 goals. Couple this with a major tournament sequence of semi-final, final, quarter-final, and any criticism of his record can feel like the height of contrariness. And yet as he leads the nation towards a win-or-bust examination at Euro 2024, it feels more than ever as if the fanbase is cleaved into two, split evenly between “one nation under Gareth” fundamentalists and sceptics convinced he will come unstuck in Germany against the first half-decent opponents he confronts.
The past week offers a case in point. On the one hand, Southgate has taken deserved plaudits for a first home win over Italy since 1977, a fitting exclamation point on a qualification campaign that England have dominated since Harry Kane’s record-breaking goal for his country in Naples last March. On the other, he has brought bewilderment through his reliance – despite a profusion of young talent in every position – on Harry Maguire and Kalvin Phillips, two players frozen out of the first-choice XIs at their clubs. For all Phillips’ credentials as a treble-winner, he started four of 61 games in Manchester City’s all-conquering season. And City lost two of them.
It is the old “teacher’s pet” scenario, where blind loyalty can override any metrics of merit. Just take Jordan Henderson. All evidence would suggest that the midfielder’s chosen course at Al-Ettifaq is nothing more than a desert twilight zone, in a squad surrounded by unproven Saudis and the odd over-the-hill Brazilian. One of his most recent matches, away at Abha, was watched by 976 people. But through it all, Southgate extols his virtues so lovingly that he would appear a shoo-in for next summer’s Euros, in honour of his “leadership”.
The justification? That selection is not a popularity contest. Perhaps so. Where Southgate’s logic unravels, though, is in claiming not to understand why Henderson is booed by England supporters. The answer is simple: many people see Henderson as a hypocrite because having been a great champion of LGTBQ+ rights he has thrown in his lot with a regime that shunts the gay community to the very fringes of existence. Those people see Henderson as a hypocrite and on the basis that true leadership means the consistent application of principles, he cannot expect to return to Wembley as if nothing has happened.
Fortunately, Southgate is hardly starved of alternatives if Henderson fails to make the plane next June. The reality is that he presides over a squad of unparalleled depth. Not even the golden generation of 2004 furnished such an abundance of riches in every department. Among the forwards alone, competition is so intense that Phil Foden and Jack Grealish, two of Pep Guardiola’s most reliable stars, threaten to be left on the bench. To comb through this team is to survey a glittering constellation of talent. Four of them – Kane, Bellingham, Grealish and Declan Rice – have commanded a combined £375 million in transfer fees in the past year alone.
And this is what lies at the root of the frustration with Southgate. He has the poster-boys of both Real Madrid and Bayern Munich at his disposal. In Foden and Bukayo Saka, he has two prodigies whose transfer value is comfortably in the nine-figure range. In 20-year-old Bellingham, he has the gift not only of this generation but maybe of any. So is it unreasonable to hope, given this smorgasbord of luxury items, that he could create a masterpiece?
England are undoubtedly a force under Southgate. Favourites? France, Spain and Germany are all poised to mount a stout challenge to that assumption in eight months’ time. The one significant reservation is that England matches are not yet what you would call appointment viewing. There is simply not the sumptuous aesthetic that you might expect of such an exhilarating line-up. Beating Italy twice is undoubtedly impressive, but this is the same Italy who have won just 11 of their last 26 matches, and who were bumped out of qualifying for the last World Cup by North Macedonia. Some context matters.
Southgate understands he inhabits the impossible job. Despite seven years of almost unbroken consistency, he knows that the one unanswerable validation will come in the form of a major trophy. Unfortunately, it is in the final pursuit of that trophy that the questions still linger. With favourable draws at the last three tournaments, Southgate has found himself tactically outmanoeuvred at the critical moment by Croatia, Italy and France. It is the Italy result that still burns – how, in front of a ferocious home crowd, did England not make their superiority count? The squandering of a second-minute lead fuelled the theory that Southgate’s instinctive caution was to blame.
It seems harsh to judge an eminently decent man by such tiny margins. Still, these are the margins that separate the great from the highly competent. And many England fans would, in all honesty, continue to place Southgate on the wrong side of that line. Whenever England’s style of play tests patience, it is tempting to fall back into the same thought experiment: would we see such a conservative, painstaking approach, one befitting a lower-end Premier League side, if Guardiola or Jurgen Klopp were in charge? It is, to put it mildly, unlikely. As such, Southgate must grapple with a stark challenge at his fourth tournament in this role. Either he will reveal himself as the handmaiden of English success – or as the handbrake on this team’s full potential.
