[hibeejim21]

I like Southgate as a man, but as a manager I'm not so sure. Why couldn't Rashford have come on for Sterling and have an actual run and a kick, he's a fckuin' wonderful player isn't he? Sancho is a player of astonishing skills, why was he reduced to last-minute dead ball kicker? Why couldn't Southgate, like Mancini, see what was happening & alter the pattern of play? The answer you'll eventually come to is that Gareth Southgate is an intelligent man, but he lacks that football shrewdness, that nous that made Mancini both as player and manager someone who could see how to change a game round, to influence what was happening. Nice Gareth hasn't got that and it can't be taught can it?

Had Southgate planned the penalties properly he'd have put his captain up first and the leader of his defence, Maguire, on last. Imagine the guts it took for 19 year old Bukayo Saka to agree to take the last penalty with the world watching and the game possibly hanging on it. He's one brave lad. If he couldn't play the game his biggest worry would be how he'd fit in with the posh kids at Oxford University next term. People should be celebrating him, not abusing him. The fearlessness of youth is largely a myth. You are fine so long as you aren't given pause for thought like Emma Raducanu at Wimbledon. If something goes wrong, or the whole thing stops and you are given time to consider the enormity of what you are being asked to do that fearlessness is no more than skin-deep.

And for all the criticism of Rashford (Including mine), he did get Donnaruma flopping like a beached whale towards the wrong corner before he scuffed his kick into the post. I don't agree with it as a method, and you can end up looking a xxxx or making the keeper look like one, but had he been given a few minutes of pitch time it would have worked and arguably given Sancho and Saka enough confidence to beat the big keeper too.

If Mancini had managed England on Sunday you would be champions. It's that simple. Mancini taught Southgate a lesson. Absolutely dicked all over him tactically.

Imagine your big moment, a squad full of talent and you decide to go to a low block 1-0 against Italy after 30 minutes.
What possible good did Southgate imagine would come of that?

I think he's an absolute imposter with "loser" written through him like a stick of rock, but he will likely get a 10 year deal from the FA now