Southgate’s England achieve Total Mediocrity at worst possible moment

As we head into another World Cup, six years on from wedding suits and dad-band beards and being nice, Gareth Southgate’s England have once again achieved the remarkable feat of uniting a divided nation. Although, unfortunately for Gareth Southgate’s England the one thing the nation appears to be united on is: Gareth Southgate’s England aren’t very good.

This probably isn’t the rallying cry Southgate would have chosen. But say what you like, it is a rare skill. And Friday night’s defeat in Milan was at least new in other ways.

England didn’t muck around here. There was no feeling their way into the game or finding their feet. They were instead dreadful, shocking, fractured from the very first minute, and kept those levels low right to the end. This wasn’t a bitty, up and down performance. It was Total Mediocrity. Not to mention a moment where something seemed to shift.

We have a sense of an ending here, of Southgate’s own time, perhaps, and of the winter World Cup cycle; twin tides of Late Gareth that will meet in Doha. There is no way of avoiding this clinch-point now. It will still be Southgate’s England, still more or less this same team that kicks off in Group B against Iran on 21 November. What can he still wring out of it?

There are at least three questions that need answering before then. The first is the obvious one: why are England performing at their lowest level in the entire six-year age of Gareth? The simple answer is, well, it has been six years.

Southgate’s methods, his constancy, his way with his players gave England form and shape after a decade of incoherence. His skill is creating “a culture”, vibes, energy. His weakness is the kind of obsessive, high-end tactical fidgeting the best coaches in the