Is that really evidence of a transformation in tournament football though?

How many times did we lose to a team that we'd expect to beat between '68 and 2016? Iceland springs to mind, but my knowledge doesn't go back any further than Italia 90 to consider other examples. And of course there have been occasions where we haven't got out of the group, but 2014 was quite a hard group I'd say, but Euro 2000 was rubbish (but arguably not a very good England side, either?).

In the knockout stages, Germany was a good win under Southgate in 2021, but probably fair to say they were not at the same level as the German sides that beat us at Euro 96 and WC 2010. And the way we dismissed Denmark and Sweden was enjoyable too - however, pretty unusual to be playing those two in a semi and a quarter respectively.

We could discuss this forever and not entirely agree, but probably not really see it much different either. He's done a solid job, we've beaten the teams put in front of us, with the exception of teams that are better. Lots of managers haven't even managed that, it's true.

Posted By: SimonOTBC on June 14th 2024 at 12:36:13

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