But we've got a manager with no previous achievements, and no soul.
Would he get a Premier League club job? I doubt it. Would be a risk.
I think what we have tried to do is copy stuff that other countries do. Especially with regard to coaching. We are mimicking, without really understanding. You watch other countries passing the ball and there is confidence. They know why they are passing it around, how to engineer possibilities, when to change the direction and the pace, and how to move off the ball. When English players play for City or Chelsea they understand the plan, and fit into it. When they play for England, they are confused and aimless, and just pass it around. Less confidently and less purposefully. We beat a lot of teams simply cos our players are better, but well coached, and highly focused teams can deal with us. We are not difficult to nullify. I feel like we have a decent set of players now, but the coaching is dull and second rate, an attempt to copy the German system without having the skill to carry it off, perhaps. We lack football intelligence, and get outsmarted.
You see in our preseason last summer that Critch was working very hard in training and the players had learnt a system, quickly. They continued to learn, they became flexible, we could rotate, we were smarter than the opposition. Southgate isn't doing that. I don't know how much time he gets with the squad but there seems to be no learning happening. Why did he play makeshift sides in the two warm up games? Complete mystery to me. Teams need to work on systems.