Real Madrid midfielder Jude Bellingham has discussed Gareth Southgate’s future as England manager after last night’s disappointing 2-1 defeat in the Euro 2024 final.
Bellingham couldn’t help England prevent a narrow defeat to Spain, and there will now be a big inquest into what went wrong for the Three Lions this summer.
Despite reaching the final, England never really looked at their best at these Euros, with Spain very much deserving their win yesterday, even if on paper it could be argued that Southgate had the better players at his disposal.
Bellingham, however, clearly has a lot of time for the under-fire manager, explaining that his record in terms of reaching finals and semi-finals can’t be denied, and also saying how close he is with him and making it clear he’d be happy to keep on playing for him and trying to deliver a trophy for him…
"I feel I can open up to him a lot" ?
Jude Bellingham on his relationship with Gareth Southgate ? pic.twitter.com/j3jSWShRgF
— Sky Sports News (@SkySportsNews) July 15, 2024
Southgate’s time as England manager is hard to summarise as the results have been beyond expectations at times, though others will argue that he could have done more given this is something of a golden generation of talent.
Still, other managers did much worse even during the era of stars like David Beckham, Wayne Rooney and Michael Owen, so perhaps this is just a harder job than many would like to admit.
Southgate clearly has the respect of his players and has done wonders to improve the belief in the squad, but perhaps at this point it’s worth considering very seriously if the next step is to bring in a manager who can produce something more pleasing on the eye in terms of the tactics and style of football.
Bellingham is capable of much more than we saw from him at the Euros, and the same is true of others like Harry Kane, Phil Foden, Bukayo Saka and Declan Rice.
Spain are a top team, but this is also a long way from being like those Spain sides of old that had the likes of Xavi and Andres Iniesta pulling the strings.