Gareth Southgate would win over Manchester United board members but not the fans

"Who's going to touch you with a bargepole?" Austin Mitchell asked Brian Clough on Yorkshire television nearly 50 years ago.

"I think many, many people will touch me with a bargepole," Clough replied. Many, many people will touch Gareth Southgate with a bargepole.

A quarter-final, a semi-final and two finals with a team that last won something when Sean Connery was James Bond is exceptional going.

Southgate is a tactful man-manager and he reconnected the England national team with the fanbase after the nadir of Iceland at Euro 2016. That in itself is an achievement.

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His starting point was invidious. Southgate took over as caretaker from a more popular manager who lasted one game before his public and humiliating defenestration, another England manager scandal splashed across the front pages. There was never any danger of that with the straight-arrow Southgate.

Southgate inspired a play at the National Theatre but he is not a national treasure. Beer cups were hurled at him in Germany one night and he was serenaded to the cringing tune of Atomic Kitten the next.

Now he is gone, perhaps the little Englander contingent of England's following will appreciate his body of work over nearly eight years and four international tournaments. He has transformed England from also-rans to contenders.

The brutal truth is the Southgate era was comparable with Sven-Goran Eriksson's five years of underachievement. England had the players to win a trophy but not the manager.

That was apparent to any objective observer after the quarter-final ejection by France in the 2022 World Cup. The palatable manner of that defeat made it