[St Charles Owl]

Yeah sure Merson took the third penalty in the most protected position out of the five.  He was a very good player, but he's spent large parts of his life addling his brain. Of course that doesn't equal 48 out of 49 across a long career. You have to be desperate even to argue the case.

As far I can see Southgate is getting praise from almost the whole country apart from HibeeJim and me. He was almost a protected species during the competition. I like the man, but if he took over the management of Chesterfield now I wouldn't be confident we'd win The National League. And I mean that.

If there has been a more insignificant international competition than the Nations League I missed it - The Inter Toto Cup of international football.

The trouble is Wakey you weaken a reasonable case with pitiable sources. If Merson's argument holds water why does anyone practice anything? Every top athlete has to reproduce what he hones on the training ground in a frenzied stadium full of roaring spectators. He has to be confident in his technique. Our one absolutely confident penalty-taker surprised the xxxx out of me - Harry Maguire. Don't know whether a lot or a little practice gave him that mindset, but it was the right one for him.

You win the discussion for me. In three separate competitions Southgate's sensible safe approach has got us close, but we haven't won. Doing the same things over and over and expecting to get a different result is a sign of madness. If there weren't weaknesses we'd have won, because we had more good players than Italy available. But there were weaknesses, there always are, we're human beings. If we want to win I think we need to address them, otherwise we'll be having the same discussion again after the World Cup, where we'll be playing in very unfavourable conditions despite the air-conditioning. There's nothing wrong with tapping into available brain-power. Top managers in other spheres openly do it. Otherwise sure as eggs is eggs nice Mr Southgate will come up against some unpleasant man who'll out-think him in the Semis or the Final and I think the talent we have deserves more than that. He needs BETTER help.

This is the key thing to Southgate's survival, his approach is sensible and safe, he has set his stall out to make sure England are first and foremost difficult to beat, and it is working, we have just gone through a tournament and didn't get beaten once in 90 or 120 mins. We have progressed further and further with each tournament and while he will always get criticized for not allowing some players to freely do whatever they want he is the most successful England Manager in terms of tournament football. I spend a lot of my time watching England imploring them to get it forward more but they don't, I would love to see more flair and fast flowing football, and I think we have the players to do that but its not what Southgate does as he knows we would lose games 3-2 like we used to see all the time when we did play with flair.

I agree with him surrounding himself with others that can have input, I don't know anything about Steve Holland, he has been a career assistant, and a successful one but I also assume he is of the same mindset as Southgate. I am not sure that you could bring in an assistant who would have a philosophy of a Kevin Keegan as it wouldn't work with someone like Southgate. We are stuck with Southgate and I am ok with that at the moment, if he was to go you know we would follow the same path anyway and appoint a Sean Dyche or even maybe Eddie Howe, and they are not that dissimilar but have had more club success.