True, but the fact England were seen as 'entertaining' at Italia 90 is a poor representation of the tournament overall. They didn't score more than once in 90 minutes throughout the tournament, in 7 matches.
Gullit v Rijkaard - for all the wrong reasons
Apart from England stuff those fouls on Caniggia are my biggest memory of the tournament, probably followed by Schillaci and Baggio.Gullit v Rijkaard - for all the wrong reasons
Klinsmann diving
Gazza
The emergence of Platty
Roger Milla being one of the stars of the tournament without starting a match, because of his absurd age.
Maradona not being as good as 4 years prior, losing opening match to Cameroon
Schillaci
David O'Leary (an actual Irishman)
Higuita shenanigans
Matthaus quality
Baggio's great solo effort
Caniggia being absolutely pole-axed by the entire 'entertaining' Cameroon side
Those were clearly massive under-achievements. Some managers underachieving doesn't make a manager meeting expectations a good manager. Although we failed to beat Scotland and scraped through the groups with 2 goals in 3 games at the Euros so wasn't exactly stellar.People who say "oh we've only beaten teams we should have beaten" seem to have forgotten England for donkeys years failing to beat teams like Algeria, Costa Rica, Iceland. Or that we'd won about two knockout games in 20 years. They also forget we beat Germany and Denmark in the Euros, on the way to reaching our first final in 56 years. But we did lose a couple of games in a tournament no one cares about.
Basically people criticise Southgate because its fashionable to do it.
I think the point is though that Southgate should be compared to previous England managers. I'm not sure how many in history have produced an upset in England's favour at a major tournament. Even in '66, I'd have assumed we were favourites in most games with home advantage, at a time when England were probably still seen as the best side in Europe (or very close to).
That's nonsense. You wouldn't say Warnock is a good manager because he was better than Woodgate, that just means Woodgate was a bad manager. He can only be judged on the job he is doing now. I.e. is he getting the most out of this squad? I think we have a good enough squad to beat any other team and yet we never do. We're currently 5th in the World Rankings. If we go to the tournament and beat the teams outside of the top 10 and then lose to one of the top 10 then we will have achieved exactly what any bang average manager should achieve. If we can beat someone like Brazil, Belgium, France, Argentina, Spain etc then he will have done well. There's no basis to claim to be the best England Manager by battering San Marino or beating Wales and Iran in the groups.
Probably yeah, we also beat Germany in the group stage of Euro 2000, but everyone said at the time that it was a poor Germany side much like they did when we beat them in 2021.
I'd say comparing him to previous England managers and every England result throughout history is a good yardstick.
I haven't really said whether Southgate is a "good" manager, but his record can only be compared to his predecessors, its pointless comparing him to managers of other countries who may be resourced very differently. How many international managers have got sides to the last 4 and last 2 of consecutive tournaments? There are a handful but its proportionately few.
It doesn't make sense though. What if the best manager we've ever had coincides with having the worse group of players? Or the other way around. Is Martinez a better manager than Southgate because his squad is better? Is Martinez the best Belgian manager ever or is he just lucky enough to have the best generation of talent Belgium have ever produced? You judge a manager on whether they are better than the average manager would be in that job. Southgate has a good squad to work with. Weak in some areas but it's international football so it's rare to get a team that doesn't have weaknesses.
England as a nation, is consistently one of the best resourced footballing nations on the planet, with a rich footballing history (dating back way before the 1966 world cup) and consistently one of the strongest leagues, hence why expectations are usually high. If you look at the 'big 5 leagues' in Europe, the other 4 have all won the World Cup recently. I agree we should have beaten Croatia but there isn't really any evidence that we should have beaten France in the final.
He has met expectations, on a game by game basis. He has yet to exceed them.
Well I am not sure he is a good club manager. I’m not even sure he is categorically a “good” international manager. But I also don’t know that any other manager would have done better than he has since 2016 as England manager (at least in major tournaments), so I give him credit for that part.
Graham Taylor to be exact 1994.
Argentina (again) was our only win in the 1962 tournament.
Well yes I said “not many” in the knowledge that we missed out on that one. I don’t need reminding, at the age of 11, I’d probably have sacrificed our family home in exchange for England just qualifying for that tournament, so I didn’t have to watch on with envy at an Irish side made up mostly of Englishmen beating the side who went on to make the final.
