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Gareth Southgate took the England men’s football team to two major tournament finals and a semi-final in the space of six years. On paper, this record makes him arguably the team’s most successful ever manager, or at least a close second behind 1966 World Cup winner Sir Alf Ramsey.
Yet Southgate has consistently divided opinion among England fans and former players, many of whom called for him to step down even as he continued to reach the latter stages of the knockouts. After he quit on Tuesday his legacy is under fresh scrutiny. Do his detractors have a point?
One of the chief criticisms of Southgate has been that his teams play ultra-conservative football, suppressing their considerable attacking talents. The response has always been that this is simply what is required to win modern tournaments. The victories of Portugal in Euro 2016 and France in the 2018 World Cup — the models Southgate has sought to follow — were built upon pragmatism over panache.
But what we saw from England last month was not the measured football that had become the trademark of Southgate’s tenure — it was for the most part a disjointed mess.
At Euro 2024, England ranked 21st out of 24 teams for the quality and quantity of chances created, behind Albania, according to data from Stats Perform’s Opta. Judged on the balance of opportunities created and conceded, this was the second worst England tournament performance in the 22 years for which data is available.
But it would be harsh to dismiss Southgate’s record on the basis of one tournament. The previous three — the 2022 World Cup, Euro 2020 and 2018 World Cup — had been creditable. England didn’t just get results, they played good football and were objectively among the better sides. So how do things look if we take a longer view?
A simple comparison of Southgate’s win percentage in tournaments has him second only to World Cup winner Ramsey. But this masks a crucial detail: Southgate’s sides have consistently faced weaker opponents than those of his predecessors, letting them get further before facing a real test.
The average side that Southgate’s England has played against in major tournaments was ranked 20th in the world, compared with 12th for Sven-Göran Eriksson, seventh for Terry Venables and sixth for Ramsey.
If we instead assess managers based on their results against superior opponents, Southgate lost every one, losing twice to Belgium in 2018, to Italy in 2021, France in 2022 and Spain last weekend. By contrast, Eriksson defeated a superior Argentina in 2002, lost narrowly to Brazil in 2002 and France in 2004, and twice drew with more favoured Portugal sides but lost both on penalties.
Eriksson’s teams performed better relative to the quality of opposition than Southgate’s, they just came up against elite teams earlier. Southgate’s quarter-final opponents were Sweden (ranked 24th), Ukraine (27th), France (third) and Switzerland (19th). Eriksson’s were Brazil (1st) and Portugal twice (ninth and third).
Southgate himself has held that his sides earned their easy routes, but this is not strictly true. In 2018, it was England’s failure to win their group that took them into the weaker half of the draw. Last month it was only by chance that France dropped out of England’s half, and in Euro 2020 England’s quarter-final opponents should have been Spain, not Ukraine. Luck plays a large role in football at the best of times, but in short knockout tournaments this is especially true.
But if fortune has smiled upon Southgate more than his predecessors, he does deserve credit elsewhere. His success in turning penalty shoot-outs from something to dread to something to play for must be applauded. Had his sides been eliminated at their first shoot-outs like Eriksson’s, we would not be having the Southgate greatness debate at all. He also fostered a much more positive atmosphere for the team: players enjoyed England duty, a sharp contrast to the “golden generation” under Eriksson.
England fans have had much more to celebrate both on and off the pitch in Southgate’s eight years than the five decades preceding them, and that will rightly be his legacy. But to credit all this to his abilities is to over-interpret a set of lucky results from tournaments where almost anything can happen. Southgate was a good England manager but not a great one, and there were signs of decline by the end. Over to someone else.
