Who should replace Gareth Southgate, then?

Potter? Howe? Someone else?

Thank you, Gareth Southgate, for not wasting anyone’s time on this.

I thought it was time to go and he’s gone. I’m not really that interested in saying much about Southgate’s tenure and the choices he made, because that doesn’t matter anymore. This is going to be a fresh start.

A new manager will be, well, new. We’ve spent years arguing over Southgate’s preferences in terms of players and tactics. For the good work he did do, England probably need that freshness. It all became a little too cosy in terms of knowing his favourite individuals and how he wanted to play. It all starts from zero now. If you think someone like Ben White or Fikayo Tomori deserves another look in, they could get it. If you think someone like Trent Alexander-Arnold deserves a chance in his preferred position, that could happen now. A new manager will inevitably develop their own preferences over time, but they should start with a fresh pair of eyes, judging this group of players as they are right now.

And what of the talent pool to inherit? It’s pretty obviously strong. Of the players to feature at Euro 2024, I think only Kieran Trippier is clearly done. Kyle Walker may well have run his race by the 2026 World Cup, but he’s been defying gravity for a little while now, so who knows? Harry Kane may or may not be at his best by age 32, but I’d be amazed if he didn’t go to the World Cup if fit. Lewis Dunk will be 34, but you probably forgot he was even in the squad this summer. Otherwise, everyone who went to Germany should be at a good age to keep going in 2026.¹

At the other end of the scale, younger players have room for improvement. Bukayo Saka (22), Jude Bellingham (21), Anthony Gordon (23), Cole Palmer (22), Adam Wharton (20) and Kobbie Mainoo (19) are all still under 24, meaning they could still get better than this. Elsewhere in that age group, Transfermarkt (which I’m not claiming is always right, but it’s an easy place to pull names from) lists another seven Englishmen in that age group with a value of over €30 million: Levi Colwill (21), Jarrad Branthwaite (22), Rico Lewis (19), Curtis Jones (23), Jacob Ramsey (23), Tino Livramento (21) and Harvey Elliott (21). That’s 13 players. They won’t all improve as hoped, but unless we’re incredibly unlucky, some of them will, and a couple might go supernova. Other young players could still improve more than expected and work their way into this group.

England just have a lot of talent. There are a lot of different directions a new manager could take this in. So let’s take a look at the rumoured names, which I ordered based on looking at a few bookies’ odds then changing it because I decided I liked the narrative flow of the article better in this way.

Graham Potter

I’ve heard a couple of people now claim that Graham Potter would be just another Southgate, and it’s pretty much purely based on vibes. Yes, they’re both pretty mild-mannered and unassuming guys. You could imagine someone in England who doesn’t pay much attention to football barely notice that the national team changed the manager.

But in terms of what they want to do on the pitch, they’re clearly different. I’ve never seen a Potter side sit deep and look to contain opponents the way Southgate’s England often did against good teams. We can argue about how well they do it, but his teams want to possess the ball and create chances in a structured way. He usually favours a back three system that becomes a back four at times. Let’s throw out a hypothetical eleven in a Potter system. I’m not saying it will or should be these specific players, so don’t get irritated that I left out someone from your club or played them out of position. That’s not what we’re here for. I’m just trying to imagine how it might go. It might start as a sort of 3-4-3 shape as so:

From there, Saka could push higher up to be a genuine winger, while Colwill can drift out to fill in the space as a left back. Alexander-Arnold can drop deeper to make it a back four, and Foden can pinch in on the right to get something that looks like a 4-4-2.

These are the kinds of rotations Potter likes, and I think he’d have the players to do it with England. I think his ideas are good. The question is whether he’d be able to coach it properly. He wants the kinds of coordinated movements in possession that take time to work on, and there isn’t a great deal of that at international level. He’d have to simplify his ideas somewhat. But I don’t think that’s impossible. Getting the basics of positional play right would be a significant improvement over Euro 2024.

When I bring Potter up online, a lot of people seem to view him almost entirely through the lens of his Chelsea spell. I don’t think that’s totally fair, but it is definitely a black mark on his career. He wasn’t able to get the team playing his football beyond a vague desire for possession. He inherited a pretty disparate group of players, but some would argue international football is very similar on that front. I think the case for him is that the unpleasant vibes at Chelsea, and a disinterested dressing room that he couldn’t convince, would be different for England. The man management under another soft-spoken figure like Southgate has been very good, so I don’t think these players need a stronger personality the way perhaps Chelsea did.

I personally like Potter and have wanted him to manage England for some time. I think he would need to display a bit more flexibility at international level, but everyone understands that, and these are problems he’s capable of solving.

Eddie Howe

“It’s not about England. That is absolutely someone else’s conversation, not mine. To speak about something else while manager of Newcastle is wrong.”

Well that’s a nice thought, Eddie, but since you haven’t actually said “no”, we’re going to talk about it. We know pretty clearly that the FA have not formally approached him, but they haven’t formally approached anyone. We don’t know whether he’d be interested in making the jump, but for the sake of this newsletter, let’s just imagine he does want it.

All things considered, Eddie Howe has been pretty flexible. At Bournemouth, he was trying to play nice possession football on one of the lowest budgets in the Premier League, to moderate success (though over his whole spell, certainly huge success). At Newcastle, he then completely switched it up and turned them into a direct and hard-running side, pressing aggressively and launching it forward at pace. A lot of managers can’t change like that. He did.

By far his biggest weakness at Bournemouth, transfers, obviously wouldn’t be an issue here. He was too reliant on signing expensive English players, but all his players would be English in this team, so problem solved. His biggest weakness at Newcastle, however, is a different story. At their best, Newcastle were a very hard-working side. During the 2022/23 season, as the data from SkillCorner showed, only Leeds were doing more running while the ball was in play than Newcastle. This is a team that finished fourth, running far more than the other sides at the top of the table.

Source: SkillCorner

Not to brag, but I had some concerns about this going into last season. As I wrote in September,

“Newcastle were a hard-running team who didn’t rest on or off the ball. It’s a physically demanding style of play. Obviously, Newcastle are going to play midweek Champions League football this season, and that means a lot of extra kilometres to run. Newcastle made it to the Carabao Cup final last season but dropped out of the FA Cup at the Third Round stage. During last November’s World Cup, just five Newcastle players went to Qatar to appear on the pitch for a combined 458 minutes. All of this helped Newcastle keep the squad fresh and ready to run, but it’s a different story this season. Now it’s Chelsea and Tottenham who get time off during the week, while Liverpool can at least rest their star names in the Europa League. Newcastle will be expected to pick a strong team both midweek and on the weekend.”

I thought Howe managed this very poorly. Newcastle looked exhausted in the second half of the season. It felt like he just didn’t think about the season in terms of fitness levels. With England, he would be judged almost entirely on the 2026 World Cup. That tournament will come at the end of a long season, in a hot climate. We’ve seen England struggle in these kinds of situations before, and expecting everyone to run through brick walls simply will not work. I’m open to the idea that Howe can adapt his style for this, but if I’m running this recruitment process, I’d want him to lay out a clear plan for this in the interview. Howe is a good coach and certainly better at club level than Southgate, but I don’t know if he can manage a tournament properly.

Lee Carsley

You can see the thinking here. Southgate has been somewhat successful (we’re not debating that today) coming from the same career pathway. Spain just won the European Championship by promoting their former Under 21s manager to the big job. Carsley’s Under 21s did the thing Southgate’s senior side couldn’t do, and beat Spain in the final to win the Euros. He’s well known within the FA and to several of the players he'd be coaching. It all makes sense.

But does it? Luis de la Fuente could go straight into the senior job because Spain are strongly committed to a certain style of football that all of their players understand. England don’t have a strong idea of football like that. I don’t quite see the value of institutional knowledge here other than being well-liked among the higher-ups calling the shots. “England DNA” was a great marketing term, but it doesn’t really mean anything in terms of how the senior side will and should play.

Having worked in the same building, Carsley will have pre-conceived notions about the players and their roles in the England squad, especially those he coached at Under-21 level. Right now, I think a blank slate and fresh pair of eyes would be much better. And it’s not like we’re talking about a proven brilliant manager here. I just don’t see the benefit. Carsley is an insider for a job that, in my view, needs an outsider.

Mauricio Pochettino

God, can you imagine his first press conference? Journalists from the worst newspapers in the land will ask him questions about the Falkland Islands and the Hand of God before anyone gets to talking about actual football. It’d be worth it for the level of gammon meltdown at a former Argentina international and personal friend of Diego Maradona managing England alone.

And I like Pochettino. I thought Chelsea were rash in sacking him when the team was starting to improve. I really liked the job he did at Spurs despite your average Twitter user thinking that it must have been crap because trophies. He really is very good at this, and England getting him would feel like a coup to me. But is he suited to international football?

He likes to press high. If that’s a problem for Howe then it’s definitely a problem for Pochettino, because I’ve never seen him successfully do anything else. And it generally takes him a long time to get the players to press the way he wants, with some ugly stuff in the meantime. England aren’t going to be able to do the full Pochettino press at the end of a long club season. He would need to adapt. I really like Pochettino, but I don’t know if he’s the guy to do that.

Thomas Tuchel

There are whispers out there that he wants it. I must admit I don’t really get why he wants it, but if he is interested, he has to be seriously considered.

Thomas Tuchel is the most successful manager on the list so far by a distance. We’re talking about a really smart and innovative coach who has the trophies to back it up, even if it didn’t go so well last season. And unlike some of the others, I think he’d suit international football very well. At both Chelsea and Bayern, he arrived in the middle of the season and was able to make quick changes to improve the teams. He’s very good at understanding how much information players can take in over a short space of time, and tailoring his approach accordingly. That is an international manager’s whole job.

I’m confident the tactical setup would be excellent. The problem is the other side of the job. Tuchel has fallen out with a lot of people in the past. I don’t think it would be a huge problem for the England players. I could be wrong here, but when international managers only get to see their players in short bursts, it’s harder for personalities to wear on each other over time the way they can at club level. But he might wear on The FA, who have become very used to having company men in these roles. Tuchel will always speak his mind. That might also be a problem in the media, where he’ll be heavily scrutinised and asked about culture war nonsense all the time. Tuchel has a fiery personality. Can he fit into Club England? I’d love to say the answer is yes, but in all honesty I don’t know.

Pep Guardiola

He wouldn’t, would he?

The case that Pep Guardiola would want to manage England goes something like this: he’s in his final year of his current contract at Man City, and some have suggested he might not renew this time (though he still very much might). He seems to want to manage a national side at some point, and the country he played for, Spain, is off the table due to his Catalan nationalist views. So where better than England, the country he already lives in? He knows the players well and has spoken about the level of talent England have. Many of the squad have worked with either him or his protégé Mikel Arteta. If he wants a national team job, this one could suit him very nicely.

Guardiola is exceptional at what he does. You don’t need me to tell you he’s good. He doesn’t get enough credit for his ability to adapt and change his ideas, so I think he’d be able to adjust to the limits of international football better than people think. He’s the best. Duh.

But he’s in a job until at least summer 2025. I don’t think he’ll make a decision on his future until sometime during the season. Can England afford to hang around waiting for him? Bayern Munich spent the 2015-16 season waiting on the hope that Guardiola would renew his contract. In the time that it took for him to decide to leave, they missed out on Jürgen Klopp as Liverpool took the initiative. No one knows what Guardiola’s plans are. He could also decide to make 2025-26 a sabbatical year, and look to take up work after the 2026 World Cup. We don’t know. He’d obviously be amazing, but I think England need the certainty he wouldn’t be willing to offer.

Jürgen Klopp

Another for the “it’d be great, but come on” pile.

Klopp definitely intends to take this season off before looking to get back into work next year. England could live with Carsley for a year in the knowledge that Klopp was coming. Like Guardiola, he’s obviously amazing. Unlike Guardiola, he doesn’t have any political hangups about managing the country he’s from, and I’d have to think he wants to manage Germany at some point. For that reason, I can’t see him working for another big European country, sadly.

Frank Lampard

Hahahahahaha.

No, but seriously, let’s not do that.

1. Yes, John Stones is the same age as Kane (30), but you’d worry less about a centre back at that age than a striker. And Luke Shaw will be 31 by 2026, but he hardly featured this time, so it wouldn’t have made a big difference if he didn’t make it.