bcubed Overall he has been brilliant in improving performance (so his overall stats are good) but for me the question is how he does under real pressure and when it really matters.
I get that he thinks our weakest area is defence so he plays more defensively and has two defensive midfielders. Amd this has been successful in qualifying and getting through tournament group stages. But when it's a case of win or go home he appears to be lacking.
If he'd made some more aggressive changes and he's spoilt for choice of attackng options, maybe we could have beaten Croatia and even more likely Italy.
I guess it’s all moot as we didn’t but had we beaten Italy, would the performance been hailed as a “tactical masterclass” by Southgate? Over the course of that tournament, Italy were comfortably the best side and we did well to nullify them
If so, are we really judging Southgate on three attackers’ inability to score a penalty? Saka and Rashford, especially, who seem to score almost every single one at club level?