For me, this Nations League setup has highlighted the inadequacies of Southgate at the top table. England will generally beat the majority of the countries we come up against in European or World Cup qualifiers, because invariably we have better players. The way the Nations League works means we’re now playing top level teams more often (lets ignore the fact Italy and Germany are way off where they have been in the past few decades), meaning we can’t just rock up and turn teams over because we have superior players. Now we actually have to rely on the Manager to set us up correctly, to pick the right players for the squad, to make changes early when something’s not going to plan. He isn’t capable of doing this and that's why we've been relegated from the top group. He’s far too reactionary and negative and now he’s also falling back on his earlier stance that the “form players will be picked”.
There is no doubt at all that he has his favourites and he’ll continue to pick them, regardless. The squad is overloaded with defenders and full backs (yet he still picks an attacking winger as a full back?!) – it looks completely unbalanced. We rely far too heavily on Kane & we still have an issue with quality and depth in central midfield; all the while you have someone like James Maddison sat at home and can’t get a look in.
He may as well have the World Cup. No point in binning him of this close to a major tournament with no more games between now and then, but as soon as it’s over, he needs to step aside and we need some fresh ideas. Absolutely no way we do anything in this World Cup with him in charge, though. As I alluded to earlier, we’ll probably make hard work of it, but we’ll likely get through the group because we have good players. As soon as we come up against someone on a level with us we’ll lose because of the manager. That’s just how it is.
