This is a fair point. The pontifications/deliberations/non stop waffle leaves me cold. I sometimes turn the sound down tbh.

And as for this "press" thing. It's "press, press, press all the bloody time. We started a drinking game in our house for a short while. Every time a pundit mentioned the word "press" we had to have chug. I had to pack it in on one occasion, it got ridiculous. The commentators seem to think they have to speak all the time, some of them (Lee Dixon) miss things because they're too busy waffling!

they talk as if what they see is something revolutionary in the game. its just something thats been around for years and years but just gets renamed to make it all up to date and sexy. even formations are not new as the game has always been fluid and not a game of subbuteo with everyone static all the time.

Somebody just pointed out to me that Southgate was a defender, a reliable safe defender at that - that's why his managing style is defensive.

An obvious point I hadn't twigged.

He was a very good defender, Full stop.

I know it’s hindsight how would it have panned out for Southgate if England hadn’t scored 2 late goals in the group stages, would he still be acclaimed as a great manager ?

Maybe our standards/ expectations as fans have dropped so low that most people now regard being almost good enough…. as good enough.
….unfortunately, it ain’t.

We're we almost good enough though? The only thing we were good at was the penalty shoot out.
Tactics were too defensive and shite, too loyal to the same players when there was potentially better on the bench, not taking a fit LB was stupidity of the highest order, stifling the natural flair and attacking players like Foden and Saka. All pretty much fundamental.

not all managers are a mirror image of when they were players though. two completely different jobs.