What Southgate has done is actually mould these players into a team, which no England manager has achieved since Robson at Italia 90. I heard Rio Ferdinand recently say that, at previous World Cups, he could sense that certain players of the so-called "golden generation" simply didn't really want to be there and I can well believe it.

Peaking with the 2010 World Cup, the England team was stuffed with arrogant, egotistical arseholes, managed by mercenaries and who, almost to a man, were thoroughly unlikeable. Compare that lot to this squad who are young, hungry and not too up themselves to refuse to be guided. Southgate has tapped into this and has instilled not only a degree of pride amongst the players but also a proper team spirit and the intelligence to work to a plan and stick with it. These things don't happen by accident - the person running the team has to take the credit for it.

England are no longer riding on the coat-tails of history - Southgate has actually got these lads believing and that can be like a twelfth man. As he said himself, 'go out there and make your own history'.

England in a World Cup semi final: that alone makes him the most effective England manager since Bobby Robson.

Did he really create a team if we consider the World Cup road with wins against Panama, Tunisia, Sweden and a draw against Colombia?

I mean it's just 4 matches. He could even go all the way against Croatia and 1 more opponent. It would be 6 decent matches, not very relevant. Would he have success in a 38 fixtures season?? It's really hard to say, for all we know it could just be luck.

But I guess that's the beauty of national teams football, it's just 90 minutes to being considered a total success or total failure....
If Tunisia had scored a 2-1 goal instead of England and they'd have gone through while England stayed at home with just 3 points in the group, I think everyone would have called Southgate the worst manager

Edited by mattteo (08 Jul 2018 2.43pm)