Will this do? On accepting England’s admirable averageness
It seems nobody quite knows what to think about England’s quarter-final exit at the men’s 2022 World Cup. The team did not play poorly, so the blame game has been rather muted. The referee has, not unjustifiably, been criticised; but it is difficult to blame the referee for the outcome of a match in which England were awarded two penalties, both in circumstances which were very unlikely to result in a goal.
There are things that Gareth Southgate got wrong, and I am not convinced the things he got right were entirely deliberate. But he did his best, and as ever his players were exemplary role models on and off the pitch, for the most part. The more interesting question, however, is whether — and why — England should settle for a par score, even if we achieved averageness rather admirably.
I am a football fan, and an England fan, so it is disappointing that the team did not excel in the way it may have done under the stewardship of an elite coach. But the fact that the reaction to failure has been under-stated perhaps suggests something quite positive about the culture Southgate has created around the male national team, reflecting its place in the cultural fault lines of a very old nation which needs to grow up very quickly.
Game up
Let’s say for argument’s sake that the eleven Southgate picked to face France constituted the best available team. Even so, this does not mean they were given the best possible instructions and, tellingly, it does not mean England were successful in adapting their approach to actual game conditions.
Mason Mount’s performance in the first-round match against the United States was obviously judged to be poor by the coaching staff, resulting in Mount being dropped. But this does not necessarily mean that he would have been poor versus France. Mount is an established international and Champions League winner, entitled to an off day — and the qualities he possesses in terms of pressing, and his nous across advanced midfield positions, were exactly what were needed in the quarter-final. This should have been clear beforehand, and certainly should have been clear before the seventy-ninth minute, when Mount finally replaced a struggling Jordan Henderson.
Phil Foden had a quiet game, but it is difficult to understand the reasoning behind removing one of England’s few players with the ability to both pass through and break through tight defensive lines, with five minutes of normal time remaining. Foden only needed one moment, and it was always more likely to come as France tired. Ideally, Foden would have been moved into a central role much earlier in the second half — giving the French defenders something different to think about, and potentially creating more space for Harry Kane.
Replacing Bukayo Saka with Raheem Sterling was almost unforgiveable. Sterling is a fading force and, moreover, had not trained all week. Saka should have stayed on — or Jack Grealish should have been given more than a minute to make his mark.
Sterling’s introduction spoke to one of Southgate’s enduring (albeit endearing) flaws as a manager: loyalty. This characteristic perhaps has a place in international football, with players being rewarded with trust for good form, when they lose form. But introducing Sterling in these circumstances had no other footballing rationale. Southgate simply determined that Sterling deserved his shot, not despite his difficult week back home, but because of it.
Reverting to a back three formation should have been considered for the France match — or at least attempted in the closing stages. Kyle Walker had a brilliant match in containing Kylian Mbappé, but England missed his presence further up the field desperately. He could have been deployed as a right wing-back, with Eric Dier coming into defence. My preference, however, would have been to ‘gamble’ on Trent Alexander-Arnold, that is, one of the greatest footballers on the planet. Walker could still have focused on Mbappé, while Alexander-Arnold offered a threat on the flank, and brought more value to the midfield in terms of passing range than either Henderson or Mount.
Of course, we know Southgate well enough by now to know that this was never going to happen. But the fact that it was barely even conceivable as an expectation-defying strategy to disrupt the world champions is an indictment of Southgate’s limitations at this level. The time for England to work out how, when, and where to make use of Alexander-Arnold’s talent has long since passed.
Beyond control
The oppression of Trent Alexander-Arnold might suggest that this England team is very much Southgate’s team. In reality, Southgate lost his grip on the side as the tournament progressed. Selecting James Maddison for the squad — leaving out the far more accomplished Jadon Sancho — was our first clue in this regard: Maddison is perhaps the polar opposite of a Southgate player, as well as being entirely untested at the elite level, and was included, I believe, as a result of a psychological spasm as Southgate wrestled with the immorality of a blood-stained World Cup serving to sportswash the reactionary and repressive Qatari regime.
We will never know what might have been, since injury impeded Maddison’s route to the starting eleven. Southgate regained his composure in selecting his team for the opening two matches, although was forced by Kalvin Phillips’ lack of gametime into playing Jude Bellingham in central midfield. But England were far from their best against Iran, irrespective of what the scoreline suggests — with the main exception of Bellingham (and partial exception of Saka).
The United States match exposed weaknesses that had been evident against Iran, and Southgate had no choice but to roll the dice. He rightly discarded Sterling, bizarrely discarded Saka, and introduced both Phil Foden and Marcus Rashford. Even then, the team’s set-up was poor, and required Foden to be moved to his natural position before England began to look remotely like they might overcome Wales. Rashford stole the show, but both of his goals were in fact the product of poor goalkeeping. Like dropping Saka, Southgate also over-corrected by dropping Mount in favour of Henderson — a decision which came back to haunt England in the quarter-final.
In truth, Southgate has never been in full control of England — his tenure has always been a partnership with his star striker. This is hardly an unusual arrangement for England, as in recent years Gary Lineker, Alan Shearer, and Wayne Rooney have all exercised authority over various England managers.
Kane is much more suited than his predecessors to the player/co-manager role, but the drawbacks of the arrangement have been apparent before. Kane’s ability to play — and insistence upon playing — at both nine and ten has prevented England from developing sophisticated offensive systems, and arguably impeded the integration of Foden and Grealish as regular starters. It is barely remembered now that Kane’s hero complex — unchallenged by Southgate — cost England the Euro 2020 final, as he played Leonardo Bonucci onside for Italy’s equaliser by failing to vacate the goal-line after a corner.
The penalty saga of the France match should have been familiar to England fans too, since Kane almost cost England the semi-final of Euro 2020 by missing a crucial penalty (only to be gifted the rebound). It was a dreadful effort, surely a product of Kane placing upon himself far too much responsibility, and Southgate failing to take his fair share of the load.
Southgate clearly needed to intervene on Sunday night, to prevent Kane taking the second penalty. Taking two penalties in a single match is always problematic. And anybody who knows how he prepares to take penalties would know that it would be particularly problematic for Kane, given that he decides well in advance where he intends to place his shot. One person who knew this extremely well was French goalkeeper Hugo Lloris (Kane’s Spurs teammate), resulting in Kane striving, when awarded a second spot-kick, for a degree of accuracy his nerves would not let him deliver.
It was obvious to me how this would play out as soon as the penalty was awarded; it should have been obvious to Southgate too. Jude Bellingham would almost certainly have scored.
Of course, contradicting Kane would have required Southgate to be present in the moment — and I would argue he has not been fully present at any point in the tournament. He had already unravelled by the eighty-fourth minute, retreating into his comfort zone in the hope that Kane and Sterling, his old favourites, would conjure the qualities that his own approach had failed to engineer.
Passengers
None of this is to suggest that the Southgate/Kane partnership has not been a success for England. The bar, after all, is rather low. No England manager has enabled their players to perform as close to their club football performance level as consistently as Southgate has.
Still, it has not been good enough. Under Southgate, England have invariably fallen short when faced with any serious test. Why then are we not more upset? For decades, we have been enraged by the failures of lesser England teams than the current one.
On this, I have one or two theories.
England no longer expects. This is a country on its knees. Since the 2008 financial crisis, our governments have told us that we can no longer have the things that many of us might once have taken for granted. A functioning health service, trains, pay rises, affordable energy, affordable homes, democratic accountability, local government, human rights, a university education. Bit by bit, the bastards are taking it all away.
At times, politicians of both left and right have offered a more hopeful narrative — but each time it has proved to be a false dawn. Think about where English politics is now. A last-man-standing Prime Minister, rejected by his own party and unwanted by the electorate, and a main opposition trying to sneak into government without asking voters to think or feel anything at all.
Our political leaders are focused above all on persuading us to accept the way things are, because no matter how bad things get, expecting more is too great a risk. We will probably reject Rishi Sunak’s financialised declinism at the next opportunity. But in Sir Keir Starmer, we will elect a Prime Minister who sees mediocrity as the antidote to meanness. Things can no longer get better, but they might only get a little worse.
This, I’m afraid, is who the English are now. Passengers. Unwilling to steer, and too brow-beaten even to complain very much. Southgate, like Starmer, will do: at least he is decent enough to tell us the truth, that is, that winning is what other countries do.
Of course, English men’s football is a repository for national traumas which run much deeper than Westminster politics.
Southgate used to talk a lot about playing for ‘the shirt’, but I am not sure he is a true believer anymore. England today is a bitterly divided nation, and Southgate’s team find themselves vilified by culture warriors hell-bent on ignoring the crimes of our nation’s past, on driving our economy to the wall in service of an anachronistic view of trade, on closing the borders to people in need, and on dismantling the rights (and expectation of basic courtesies) of anyone deemed less authentically English.
Did Southgate and co. really want to bring glory to this nation, feeding a misguided sense of national supremacy? This bunch of millionaire athletes are in fact quite sensitive to the historical angst that many people feel when they think about England and Englishness. We can speculate that this is feeding into football culture — not in encouraging the players to play less well (I have no doubt that each one of them played their hearts out against France), but rather in enabling the nation as a whole to acquire a little perspective about the latest failure.
From this perspective, it might be a good thing if England takes a back seat, while we come to terms with how history with the English at the wheel was experienced in other parts of the world.
Moving on
English football has always absorbed wider political and cultural anxieties. It is naïve to think that it can be purely a form of escapism. But it should offer some respite. It is supposed to be fun, and the fun derives principally from competition. A conclusion that any nation should be, even subconsciously, denying itself the prospect of victory, by whatever means they have at their disposal, is too depressing to contemplate.
Although football can never rise above moral and political issues, it is equally naïve to think that a football team, however well-intentioned, can actually lead society in the quest for more harmonious relations and virtuous characteristics. But I think this is precisely where Gareth Southgate’s England has found itself, not least because this is where Southgate has led them.
The burden is too great, and when it really comes to the crunch, the football suffers. The national team in men’s football is never going to forge a new version of progressive Englishness. We need a new English identity, a new national settlement, first — and then to let our footballers play to win, without qualms.
In the absence of this settlement, English football needed a Gareth. Southgate has brought decency and discipline to a team characterised by decadence and disarray. But as a very wise woman once said: thank you, next.
It is time to move on from England’s most successful manager (by a long, long way) of the modern era.
I would be happy to see either Eddie Howe or Graham Potter in the role. Equally, I have no objection to someone like Mauricio Pochettino or Thomas Tuchel being appointed. England is a weird nation, as xenophobic as it is porous. But it is a fact that people who are not English dominate our national sport, especially among elite managers (at the same time, the best English managers rarely gain experience overseas).
If we are not prepared to accept another foreign coach, do we simply settle for a litany of mid-table maestros, hoping to one day get lucky with another Gareth? Nobody is advocating a return to the days of Sven-Göran Eriksson or Fabio Capello, but rather openness to managers with experience of working with English players in the Premier League.
