Rick Edwards

Yeah, and it's the TikTokification of things that makes it be like, oh, he didn't win everything, so he's a failure.

So it kind of suggests that all the wins and all the triumphs that it took to get to those finals mean nothing because you didn't end up winning the final.

But it is absolutely obscene and unheard of to think that Gareth Southgate's record is two back-to-back finals at the Euros, one semi-final at his maiden World Cup.

And then a quarterfinal loss to the eventual finalists.

And they are a real golden generation of France.

And an evenly contested game, a game that we could have won and maybe didn't quite grasp.

And, you know, the Harry Kane mental gymnastics with Hugo Lloris and the penalties.

That's serious mind game.

So for me, like, it really does frustrate me that Gareth doesn't get lauded as...

as truly like the most important england manager of our generation the most important england manager of my lifetime and probably will be the most successful one because i just cannot see us spending nine years going probably gonna make the semi-final probably could win this like that's just not i just don't think that's coming back uh anytime soon and

maybe it's kind of like Arsene Wenger syndrome where he used to finish fourth all the time and he was like, that's like a trophy.

And everyone used to laugh at him.

And now that we're removed from that, people start going, oh yeah, like finishing fourth consistently is actually a pretty good thing.

So who knows?

Time will tell, but I love Gareth.

And yeah, if he walked into this room, I would hug him and start crying into his waistcoat.

In you come, Gareth.

The moment is now.

I suppose the thing is, from everything that we've said,

Sometimes the point of a World Cup and an enjoyable World Cup from an England point of view, and actually for any fans, is it's the journey to get wherever it is you end up.