England looking for a new manager after Gareth Southgate stepped down from the role Jurgen Klopp Pep Guardiola JURGEN Klopp and Pep Guardiola are being linked with the England manager's job following Gareth Southgate's exit, but I can't see either of them taking it on. There is no doubt in my mind that Klopp or Guardiola would get more out of that talented England squad than we saw from them over the course of Euro 2024. England did better than I expected in Germany, rode their luck all the way to the final and had a chance to push for a win when the excellent Cole Palmer got them back into the game against Spain last Sunday.
Yet Southgate is a safety-first manager and his tactics were questionable for much of his reign as England manager. I have met Gareth on a few occasions and he is a lovely guy who should walk away from the England job with his head held high. To get to two European Championship finals and a World Cup semi-finals is a magnificent record and it is even harder to do it when you are dealing with expectations that are off the scale.
England will always have this mentality that everything evolves around them and they are entitled to win the biggest trophies on the international stage because they invented the game. Well, by the time the next World Cup rolls around, it will be 60 years since England lifted their one and only trophy on the international stage, so it might be time for English football to drop that sense of entitlement. While Southgate deserves credit for taking England closer to success than any manager since Alf Ramsey in 1966, it feels like there is a lot more that could be extracted from that squad.
There were so many times Euro 2024 when you felt they had the opposition at their mercy and needed to push on. We don't know whether that was Southgate and his coaching staff telling the players to sit back or whether his squad have a cautious mentality, but they certainly appear to be more ambitious when they play for their clubs. You could feel the pain for England's players and fans as they lost a second successive Euros final, but the harsh truth is they probably got as far as they could with Southgate as their manager.
The challenge in international management is you don't have an opportunity to turn to the transfer market to sign players and build a team. You are presented with the talent a national team has and you have a few days every couple of months to try and build a team and a spirit among them. We've heard stories from Rio Ferdinand and other former England players suggesting club rivalries affected squad unity, but Southgate solved that problem by building a strong spirit in his squad.
What he should have done was promote a brand of football that wins tournaments, with Spain's high-energy attacking style too much for England in the Euro 2024 final. We saw something similar with France and Argentina as they won the last two World Cups, but England's performances were hard to watch under Southgate. If Klopp or Guardiola were in an England tracksuit at the next World Cup, they would instantly become strong contenders, but it doesn't feel like either of them would want the job.
When you have achieved everything in club football and look for your next challenge, winning the World Cup would probably be a target. Yet you would imagine Klopp and Guardiola would want to win on the international stage with their own nation and that's why I can't envisage either of them as England manager. I'm sure Klopp likes the idea of standing on the touchline singing the German national anthem and trying to win the biggest trophy in international football for his country.
The same with Guardiola and the Spain job, with their current squad looking primed to be strong contenders to win the next World Cup, but anything is possible. If you look at the English-born contenders to replace Southgate, they don't have anything like the CV's of Jurgen or Pep and if they were interested in the job, the English FA would have to look at them. For anyone questioning whether the English FA would hire a German to lead their national team given the history between the two countries, just look at what Jack Charlton did when he became Ireland manager.
Appointing a very proud Englishman who won the World Cup for his country to the Ireland job was a controversial move, but Big Jack was quickly adopted as an Irish hero when he brought is success. Some weren't sure whether English-born players like me should have been playing for Ireland at the time, but they quickly evaporated when they saw the passion I had for the cause every time I pulled on that green jersey. So the nationality issues could be overcome if Klopp or Guardiola fancied the England job and I can envisage a very different England team with either of them in charge.
There are some top quality players in that England team, but we didn't see the best of Harry Kane, Jude Bellingham or Phil Foden at the Euros and Southgate's successor needs to put that right. Klopp and Guardiola would be perfect candidates to bring a winning mentality, but it wouldn't be easy for either of them to get an international team to play their brand of football due to the lack of preparation time they would have. These two legendary managers have enjoyed success over long periods at a club, as they bed down their ideas and get players to sing their tune after working with them every day.
They would not have that luxury of time in an international job so in my view, the likely outcome is England will appoint another homegrown manager to replace Southgate, with Graham Potter, Eddie Howe and former Ireland midfielder Lee Carsley the leading contenders. When you see the expectations England managers have to deal with, nothing less than winning the next World Cup will be considered acceptable for their fans and media. I'm not sure Klopp or Guardiola would be bothered with taking on a job with a foreign national team that will probably end in disappointment.
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