In his seventh exclusive column for CaughtOffside, super-agent Rob Segal lifts the lid on what’s really going on in British football.
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The biggest change the English FA need to make is not Gareth Southgate…
Gareth Southgate is a company man. He isn’t going to make any waves for the FA, he is also a problem solver and the FA love that about him. But with regards to the Nations League, regardless of whether it is a friendly tournament, or not, Southgate and England were beaten twice by Hungary.
Bad results they may be, I do still think Southgate survives, but I think his first-team coach, Steve Holland, should go because he’s definitely been one of the luckier coaches in the game. He very much landed on his feet with Jose Mourinho at Chelsea and then Carlo Ancelotti.
All you have to do is go back to the Euros 2020 final against Italy. England waited and waited to make changes and then it was too late. The whole stadium, apart from the Italians, was frustrated. You could clearly see that the tactic was ‘if we do not concede a goal, we can’t lose’. Well, that mentality must come from the coach… That’s Holland’s job!
As it turned out, they did concede and the game ended up going to penalties – the rest is history but it felt to me like the players who should have taken spot-kicks, didn’t and that is all part of the negative effect.
What really bothers me is the style of the country’s football. Defending deep and then launching the ball forward for Harry Kane to try and feed off scraps. It is atrocious entertainment. Watching England is one of the most boring experiences. You watch the Three Lions for 90-minutes and you’ll never get that time back.
In terms of what may happen after the winter’s World Cup, anything less than reaching the semi-finals should be considered a big disappointment. If England do underwhelm and the time comes for Southgate to move on, Brighton’s Graham Potter would be a superb candidate to succeed, as would Sean Dyche. Can you imagine what kind of a job Dyche would do with the country’s very best talent? – He’d be fantastic.
Chelsea’s Todd Boehly could be in for a shock…
Recent news has confirmed that Chelsea’s Marina Granovskaia and Bruce Buck will depart the club. There is of course, still some uncertainty surrounding Granovskaia’s exact departure date.
When you take over a business, especially a football club, you need to slowly assess what you have and what you do not have. It wouldn’t surprise me to see Granovskaia stay until the end of the window so that the process of recruiting a sporting director can take place properly.
But if Todd Boehly is going to continue working on the ‘shop floor’, so to speak, then, unfortunately, he is going to be in for a major shock.
Leeds United close to losing their two best players…
Leeds United need to sell – that much is obvious.
Offloading Raphinha might be enough, but Kalvin Phillips is a strong candidate to go too. He is close to joining Manchester City, I hear.
They see him as a long-term replacement for Fernandinho and he’s a player they really like and he has definitely come on leaps and bounds in the last two years.