It says much about English expectations that the appointment of a new national team football manager barely raises an eyebrow here (or anywhere come to that).
Has it really come to this?
They think it’s all over……..
Apathy in the UK
by 21 Comments
I wish it was.
I think I finally reached some sort of tipping point over the summer. I’d started the Euros by booking an afternoon off work to watch the Wales game, as I often have when England are in a tournament. By the evening of the Iceland debacle I wasn’t angry or upset, I just found myself laughing at the TV as the absurdity unfolded. Judging by my Twitter feed others were doing the same. The gap between expectations and where England were actually at was exposed for the nonsense it was. And after watching about 10 minutes of Allardyce’s first game, I decided that actually I didn’t really care what happened, and went and sorted some chores that needed doing.
I might watch them in the World Cup when they inevitably qualify. Or I might not – no point in sacrificing some summer evenings if the weather’s good.
Makes no difference who the manager is when we simply don’t produce players of the necessary quality, or those we have simply do not perform when the heat is on. If Gareth can sort that out, he’s a miracle worker.
TBH, I hate the international breaks. I always find myself wishing there was league football to watch instead.
With the Count on this one. Last time I enjoyed watching England play was Italia 90 and then the little bit of magic of Gascoigne against Scotland at Wembley in 1996.
Since then they have been worse than abject and with the likes of Rooney still currying favour in the England set up it is clear the tail is wagging the dog.
Don’t mind Southgate but suspect he will go the way of all other England managers. A winning streak leading up to a tournament followed by an early exit and the derision and vitriol of our over expectant press.
Give me league football any day,
Entirely appropriate that the team should be managed by someone whose name is synoymous with England bottling it at a major tournament.
And I’m sure we’ll all be astonished after weeks of heavily-sponsored hype to watch England fail to get out of a group that includes St. Kitts, Transnistra and Barnstoneworth United.
Football seems to have one or two other preoccupations at the moment. Southgate seems like a decent bloke, but his appointment was somewhat buried by other news….
Sadly it is just the first step towards an emotional resignation and leaving the baying press hoard, shoulders down. And no one would like to see Sir Gareth Southgate arise for his services to football after winning the world cup. You just learn, over time.
I realise music and football are not mutually exclusive categories, but football seemed so thuggish in the early 70s, that once I had got past my pre-pubescent phase of avidly reading “Shoot!” and “Scorcher”, music took over. As a music fan I didn’t have to pretend to be “hard” (I was ever going to be actually “hard”, nor ever wanted to be so), nor feel guilty or somehow lacking for being middle-class. I know football is not necessarily like that, but it seemed so then.
You seem to be suggesting that being hard and being middle-class are mutually exclusive. I take issue with that. If you spill my Montrachet I will spill your face. That’s a promise, pal.
You and whose swami, pal?
Uggghhh! Ya bazza!
*Biffs Jeff over the head with very-tightly-rolled-up copy of the BBC History Magazine*
*Folds TLS into Millwall Brick, invites Moose to “…come at me, bruv”.*
“And ye vaunted your fathomless power, and ye flaunted your iron pride,
Ere—ye fawned on the Younger Nations for the men who could shoot and ride!
Then ye returned to your trinkets; then ye contented your souls
With the flannelled fools at the wicket or the muddied oafs at the goals.”
Honey, is you trippin’?
No, Kiplin’
We weren’t very good 10 years ago when our team may have read James, Neville, Cole A, Ferdinand, Terry, Beckham, Gerrard, Lampard, Cole J, Heskey, Owen (what not Scholes!)or something like that. That team would destroy the current mob. Southgate is the perfect man for the job
The much maligned Heskey was the only person to ever get a tune out of the post-Everton, post-2004, Rooney.
Home match, beat someone 3-0, 8/9 years ago, Heskey made Rooney look good.
No, seriously.
Last and only time, mind.
Time will tell but England have tried every style of manager over recent years / decades. All had their merits on paper at the time of their appointment but for whatever reason things didn’t work out as hoped. One thing I do know, however, is that the following reasons don’t wash, as they apply just as much in more successful countries:
An over-expectant, critical media
Too many foreign players
Too highly paid
Not passionate enough
Etc etc…
Chaps. Time to let go. We won’t get anywhere while people have satellite dishes on their rooves, and fuckwits who have never kicked a ball in their lives yet seem to have all the answers, while subsidising our mediocrity, are the ones effectively in charge of our national game.
I’m Scottish, and I wish him the best of luck, sincerely.
One major plus he has going for him right now is that he isn’t some kind of arrogant media driven wankstain ‘personality’. He knows his football and knows whereof he speaks. He strikes me as a coach who might at least generate some pride in playing for the country again.
Let us not forget that this is a country for whom Harry Redknapp came close.
I don’t think ‘Arry would’ve been that bad an option. On comedy value alone.