The Sports Buff ⚽️ ⚾️ 🏈

England manager Gareth Southgate has announced he will be stepping down after eight years in the role. The 52-year-old who formerly managed the Under-21 side, made the step to manage the senior side after the infamous sacking of Sam Allardyce.

When the former Middlesborough and Aston Villa centre-backs time was in charge of the National side he took them to a World Cup semi-final in 2018 and a World Cup quarter-final in 2022.

In the European championship, England faired better, in 2020/1 they finished as runners up and suffered the same feat in Germany 24. Statistically The Three Lions have done well in tournaments under Southgate’s leadership.

Only Sir Alf Ramsey is more successful than Gareth Southgate. With a 60%+ win percentage too, to say that the former England manager failed in his time as England’s manager is harsh to a point.

Critics will say this is a golden generation, but so were the sides in 2002 and 2006, so let’s be fair here. In that era, with the unbelievable talent England for them to have not contested a semi-final at least is unbelievable.

Having said all that, in his time in charge, Southgate has had some arguably favourable draws, which helped them get that far in the competition. In 2018, they lost to Croatia when they should have won and the same could be said in the Euro final.

On the balance of it, Gareth Southgate has done a respectable job, but there will always be a what if?

The facts of the matter is, this is one of England’s best squad’s in years. Football should have come home, which for once is not a pipe dream.

Graham Potter, Eddie Howe and Maurcio Pochettino and Jurgen Klopp have been linked as targets too.

Here at The Sports Buff we would say, give it to Pep and watch these boys shine!

Fancy smelling nice for the summer? Why not try amour scents and get 10% off your order;

https://amourscents.com/?ref=8jvems1i

Use my code; AYYAZTHEBEARDED

Here at the-sports-buff.com, we have enjoyed serving you the readers. Thank you for your support and your feedback. We are aiming to grow, and we need your help.

We please need your support as we look to grow our team further and improve our site. With as little or as much as you can do to our site to grow, so it can be one of the pioneers of sports that we know it can be, we appreciate it if you could donate, as much or as little as you can.