If I was a gambler, I really would have a cheeky £10 on England not qualifying from the group stage. I know it is "only" The Nations League, but that defeat at home to Hungary (who were excellent, by the way, and fully deserved to win) was the worst I have seen us as a team since THAT game against Iceland in 2016.
It's long been a mystery as to why England routinely underperforms in World Cup when, on paper, they have one of the best squads perennially. A part of it, of course, is that England is terrible in penalty shootouts, a game deciding method which I think is an abomination, even though many fans love the masochism of watching it.
Seeing that La Liga teams tend to beat Premier League in Champions League, I may be overestimating the strength of English roster though.
England is very good at blowing their own trumpets. Look back at some of those squads from the past decade in retrospect - just terrible. This squad is better than those, but many of the players will be looked at rather poorly in 10 years' time. Tactical ineptitude from a manager who got the job because the last guy was an open sleazebag doesn't help.
Southgate's England of course profited from a mixture of luck and easy paths to the final four/two in 2018 and 2020. Their performances in the group stages of both contests were nothing special and in World Cup they almost got knocked out by known football titans Colombia (I remember watching that penalty shoot out in some seedy Birmingham pub, those were the days). In the Euros they essentially had one good performance against a (weak) German side and still managed to lose on home soil against a decidedly undercooked Italian side. We'll see whether Southgate can keep up the streak of bumbling his way into semis/finals, but it seems unlikely. He'll probably hang onto the job though (unless it's a truly abysmal outing), for lack of anyone more appealing and his ability to ride the media zeitgeist.
