Gareth Southgate has been the England manager since 2016 and is yet to have earned a major reward as their manager in the seven years since.
England are arguably within another golden generation throughout Southgate's tenure with world class players and future world class players making their way towards footballing stardom. Yet despite their quality of players and the decrease in quality in other nations such as Italy and Germany, they have yet to capitalise on this and capture silverware as a nation. The closest that they got was in Euro 2020 in which they agonisingly lost on penalties in the final to Italy at Wembley Stadium.
Many England fans have pointed blame of this towards Gareth Southgate. The thing fans have spoken about particuarly is his pragmatic style and favourtism. During the early days of Southgate's tenure, chances created were few and far between with the majority of goals which were scored having to come through various different set-pieces, mostly directed in by captain, Harry Kane.
This has been especially frustrating for English fans considering the depth of the talent that England have at their disposal in the final third, meaning many talented players get left out of the team. The pragmatic style has also led to a favoured teamsheet for Southgate. These tend to include players not on best form or of the best quality that the nation have to offer in the perception of the fans. This includes the likes of Harry Maguire and Jordan Henderson, who have been mainstays in the team, despite all of the criticism they have had for their performances over the last five years.
They have been favoured over players who have been highly praised by fans as players who deserve to start, such as Fikoyo Tomori and Jude Bellingham. Southgate may have justification for doing this however as he was the u-21 England coach prior to taking the role at senior level in the early 2010s which is when the likes of Harry Maguire and more specifically Jordan Henderson would start to make waves as youngsters.
It may be harsh to push all of the blame onto Southgate however. Since taking over as England manager, he has gotten to the quarter final stage of each major tournament thus far with them being semi-finalists at the 2018 world cup, finalists at Euro 2020 and quarter finalists at World Cup 2022. This is great comparitive success for England especially in regards to their form in the few years prior to Southgate, in which they did not make it out of the group in World cup 2014 and did not even qualify for the Euros back in 2008.
This shows perhaps an inherently low mentality on winning within the national team that Southgate may need to break in addition to his criticism. It is especially curious considering some of the players within the England team are serial winners with players like Sterling and Foden and Henderson having Premier League title wins in recent years, yet with England it has not seemed to click on the pitch as it has for their respective domestic clubs.
There is still time for Southgate to tackle this and bring the performances of the team up to what he expects of them with the Euros still months away before they commence. But the pressure is on from both fans and media and only time will tell whether the manager of the Three Lions is responsible for no trophies since 1966.