Gareth Southgate has stepped down as England manager after eight years. A second defeat in the final of the European Championships quite understandably proved too much for a man who has done so much to transform the national team but couldn’t quite get them over the line to end all those countless years of hurt.
Farewell, Gareth, but time waits for no man. Southgate is gone so the question must now be: who replaces him? The FA have appointed Under-21 boss Lee Carsley as interim head coach while they complete their deliberations and settle on a final choice.
Which, according to the latest odds, is probably Carsley. But might be one of these other lads, maybe.
10) Carlo Ancelotti
We raise a quizzical eyebrow. Seems vanishingly unlikely but sorely tempting.
7=) Kieran McKenna
Not sure this one’s really a goer for all manner of reasons, but we suppose if Ipswich have a really eye-catching season and Lee Carsley has been interim manager without doing enough to secure the job for himself then it’s just about possible to imagine a scenario in which the stars suitably align.
7=) Frank Lampard
“I think he’s [Lampard] been a bit unlucky in his managerial career in some ways,” said Gary Lineker of his fellow BBC man Frank Lampard during Euro 2024.
“He gets it tactically and he’s Frank Lampard. I think this is Gareth Southgate’s last tournament whatever, whether we win it or not. But I wouldn’t disregard Frank. I think players would respect him immensely. If you’re going to go English. Who else? Eddie Howe?”
We would cheerfully and entirely disregard Frank. And also yes, if you’re going to go English then probably Eddie Howe, sure.
7=) Ruben Amorim
There’s a huge jump in price between the sixth and seventh favourites, with Ruben Amorim making a bolt into the top 10 which is good because it is not actually legal for there to be a next manager betting market in which the Sporting boss doesn’t figure prominently.
6) Jurgen Klopp
A textbook choice of armchair fans and there are two compelling reasons why he might be up for it here but we’re not sure Liverpool fans would ever forgive him for leaving them for England. And it really does not chime with the narrative of the sabbatical. Turned down the USMNT only recently and while it would be negligently irresponsible if the FA suits didn’t sound Klopp out we do rather suspect the conversation would be a short one. Which is undeniably a shame, because Klopp as England manager would, we suspect, be a great deal of fun.
4) Graham Potter
Plenty of reports suggesting he’s been ‘holding out’ for the England job having turned down several approaches to get back into club management.
His reputation is undoubtedly tarnished from the Chelsea unpleasantness, but let’s not entirely forget what he started at Brighton. Consistently got them punching above their weight and is a brilliant tactician, while the xG issues that have plagued his teams should be less of an issue with this England side.
He’d be making the move from day-to-day coaching very young, though, although having been out of that particular game for as long as he now has perhaps that’s not the issue it might otherwise have been. Probably still just about in the position where his availability is a blessing rather than something to be held against him.
3) Eddie Howe
After 2022/23, having steered Newcastle into the Champions League, it would be almost impossible to see Howe walking out on that for England. But the rather more difficult – for club and manager – 2023/24 season really does make it more rather than less likely that Howe does now in fact end up with England.
It’s easy enough to see how people could be won over by the concept of Eddie Howe, England manager; he would appear to sit pretty handily being viewed as enough of a Southgate-like figure for the former manager’s supporters to fall in behind while boasting a superior club-level CV and arguably more appealing brand of football.
And the Newcastle job no longer looks quite the guaranteed route to enormous success it did a year or so ago. While the Klopp pipedream has the loudest cheerleaders among the media and ex-pros, the far more feasible Howe would appear to be a cosy second on that particular list.
2) Pep Guardiola
England’s tip-top number one choice for after the Euros, apparently. Fair enough, you’d have to say. He’s quite good. Might just decide he’s done all that can be done at Manchester City, but will have a desk full of extremely lucrative offers and might even decide on another sabbatical rather than jumping straight into work as and when he does leave the Etihad. Can easily see why England would desperately want to make this happen, harder to see why Pep would.
1) Lee Carsley
The Under-21 boss (and thus continuity Southgate candidate in terms of CV if not necessarily style) has hardened to a pretty overwhelming odds-on favourite for something more permanent having started his interim reign with a pair of comfy wins over Ireland and Finland.
The fact England’s objective in the two remaining pre-Christmas international breaks is completing (what should be) the relatively straightforward task of getting themselves back into the top tier of the Nations League, an interim Carsley has already begun putting together what could quickly become a pretty compelling case a la Southgate 2016 for that more permanent chance. And with Southgate’s time viewed very much as a success by The FA (and quite rightly, to be fair) they are unlikely to be as opposed to taking the same route again as some fans might be. We’d also like to think they won’t be remotely swayed by some daft right-wing snowflakes having one of their frequent attacks of the vapours about the national anthem, but we also wish we were more certain of that.
It’s not easy or particularly fair to make comparisons given Carsley’s interim task is exclusively against teams who couldn’t even qualify to feature in England’s unacceptably easy run to the Euros final during the summer, but there has been a marked decrease in the amount of football played by England that actively makes us want to gouge out our eyes to avoid seeing anymore of it before cutting our head open and using a rusty spoon to scoop out the memories of what we have already seen. So that’s good.
If you’ll forgive the Lampardian Transition, on a serious note it’s worth pointing out for those actually betting on this that different bookmakers will have different rules about when a caretaker or interim manager is deemed to have ‘won’ for their purposes if no official upgrade in status is announced. It’s usually something like eight to 10 competitive games – and that’s obviously a higher bar for an international interim manager to clear than a club one. It’s possible he could keep the seat warm for a whole year without actually winning the bet.
