As England manager, the choice of decent centre backs is extensive. The England manager also has a wide variety of left backs at his disposal.
Manchester United’s manager, realistically, has to choose from four centre backs to fill two positions and two left backs for that one position. Given his limited options why would Erik ten Hag choose to start with Varane and Martinez whilst benching Maguire and Lindelof? Also, why would he choose to start Malacia over Shaw?
Having comfortably lost their first two games of the season, the above players became the manager’s preferred choice and, apart from a European hiccup when he reverted to the prior selection, United have not lost a game since.
So back to Gareth Southgate and his much wider pool of players hoping for an England call. Despite, we assume, having seen how poor United’s results were when Maguire and, to a lesser extent, Shaw were in the team he still insisted on picking them for the national team.
Is he blind? Is he stupid? Is he both? We here at WSA don’t think he’s either. Judging by his awful waistcoats at a certain World Cup he can’t be blind and, having heard him talk reasonably eloquently, he doesn’t come across as stupid. So what’s the problem?
Over the years England have had some very good managers and some very good players. Now they have Harry Kane and a naive manager who appears to be clueless when it comes to substitutions, team selection and tactics.
His record with England isn’t disastrous, it just isn’t as good as some people would have you believe. He’s reached the semi-final of a big tournament, (and lost a game he should have won). He’s reached the final of a big tournament, (and lost a game he should have won).
His managerial career with England is almost a carbon copy of Ole Gunnar Solskjær’s career with United!
The obvious difference between the two is that Manchester United persisted with Solskjær for around two years longer than they should have done, despite him also being clueless regarding substitutions, team selection and tactics. Unforgivable really when considering he should never have been a candidate for the job in the first place! He was, however, sacked when results became too bad for even the pathetic Woodward to defend him any longer.
Gareth Southgate has been England manager for SIX years. He also should never have been a candidate for the job and, having been wrongly appointed, should have been sacked years ago!
The actual difference between the two is/was their boss(es). Ed Woodward was to football what we at WSA are to quantum physics but he eventually, shortly before leaving, made the right decision and sacked Solskjær.
Southgate’s faceless bosses are quite happy with their wrong decision and seem prepared for even more trophyless years to add to the current 56.
As with most things, it is the ones in the firing line who will shoulder the blame for failure but, as always, the most stupid and elementary mistakes are made by the people who employ them in the first place and, like the two managers in question, they will never admit to making a mistake!
WHY SAY ANYTHING? 