sport news Gareth Southgate jokingly calls himself the 'numpty in charge' but can he prove ... trends now
Gareth Southgate puts it best. ‘I know there’ll be people on social media saying, “Blimey, we’ve got all these good players and this numpty’s in charge”. So you’ve got to keep proving yourself.’
Indeed you do. One more time, Gareth. If medals were handed out for self-awareness, Southgate could be confident of being top of the podium here in Qatar.
Twitter and the man in the pub — and it is mostly angry men who coalesce around this view — have decided that they never liked his waistcoat anyway and that he is the man who cost us OUR trophy at Euro 2020.
Gareth Southgate is preparing to guide England to his third major tournament finals
You can tell them he’s the best England manager since 1966, but Southgate’s words, from a podcast interview he did with Jake Humphrey, resonate. For them he will for ever be a numpty. And that’s the printable version of their verdict.
The angry men with an overdeveloped sense of national entitlement might be surprised at how close they came to getting their way. When England lost 4-0 at Molineux to Hungary last summer, a cacophony of boos greeted the final whistle from those who had bothered to stay. It was a truly awful performance. And something Southgate said recently indicated just how hard that result hit him.
After more boos, when the team lost to Italy in Milan in September, Southgate was discussing the problematic wider mood with a small group of journalists.
Asked about the jeers and the state of the national team, he replied: ‘Look, I think that’s currently where it is and I have to accept that. I think I’m the right person to take the team into the tournament. I think it’s more stable that way without a doubt.’
No one had actually asked if he was leaving as no one assumed this was viable two months before the World Cup. Southgate’s answer suggested it was a proposition he had been debating over the summer.
England kick-off their World Cup campaign against Iran on Monday in their first Group B game
For a couple of weeks after that Molineux defeat he was very low; it seems there was a dark night of the soul. You wonder if he too was wrestling with the thought that has hung over this team ever since Luke Shaw scored in the second minute of the Euro 2020 final? Was that the peak Southgate moment, 88 minutes from glory with England on the front foot, playing at Wembley in front of an impassioned crowd?
It feels like backward steps ever since, or at least a retreat from the thrilling opening 20 minutes in that final, when England were swaggering to their first major trophy since 1966. There was a literal retreat into a back five, the surrendering of the midfield to Italy, the uninspired second half and extra time, the penalty misses which were more depressing for the racist abuse they unleashed than the actual defeat.
Southgate and his team felt it, as England received their silver medals to an empty stadium, with only the Italy fans and players’ families there, the latter having been trampled and scared witless by the feral violence and mayhem that preceded the game.
The fall-out from a night of hooliganism and racism meant something potentially glorious soured. Southgate’s England, a beacon for decent patriotism, was seemingly overwhelmed by the forces of toxic nationalism and anarchic hooliganism, though he would argue that the outpouring of love and outrage of behalf of Bukayo Saka, Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho indicated the decent England in which he believes.
He lifted the squad pretty quickly after that, asking them, when they reconvened in September 2021, whether that was it for England now or did they have the desire to go again. They responded with a 4-0 win in Hungary. But that dismal Nations League run in the
