The day that was pencilled in for parades and receptions ended up being the sad end of an era.
Just after 11am on Tuesday morning, the Football Association (FA) confirmed the departure of Gareth Southgate after almost eight years as England manager. Southgate was allowed to effectively break the news himself, through a statement in which he said that it had been “the honour of his life” to play for and manage England, but that it was now “time for a change”.
The news was no real surprise to anyone who saw Southgate’s last public act as England manager, which was his press conference in the bowels of Berlin’s Olympiastadion late on Sunday night. Southgate ducked questions about his future and sounded like a man who had reached the end of the line. Nor was it a shock to staff who said goodbye to him at Stansted Airport on Monday afternoon, even though they had no prior warning before Tuesday’s announcement.
But even if it was no surprise for Southgate to step down, it still leaves a hole at the heart of English football.
Southgate was more than just the coach of the team: he had re-shaped the job into something bigger, effectively overseeing English youth development and coaching at all levels, and as a spokesman for the soul of the national game. Southgate was admired throughout the FA, not just by those who worked immediately alongside him, and it was an especially sad day at FA headquarters yesterday, even beyond the fact the team had just lost the European Championship final.
The FA knows that time is of the essence. England’s next game is a Nations League trip to Dublin to face the Republic of Ireland on September 7. Under normal circumstances, that would mean announcing the squad on roughly August 27, just six weeks from Southgate’s departure. The FA hopes to have a new permanent manager in place by then but is confident it has interim solutions if it does not. While this is widely speculated to be Lee Carsley, the England Under-21 manager, that is not necessarily the case so early into this process.
The key figure in all of this is John McDermott, the FA’s technical director. He joined the FA in March 2020 after 15 years at Tottenham, where he was academy manager. McDermott effectively rebuilt the Tottenham academy and oversaw the development of their best generation of players — not just Harry Kane but Andros Townsend, Jake Livermore, Ryan Mason and Harry Winks, all of whom played for England.
McDermott was especially close to Mauricio Pochettino, working with him to guide youngsters into the Spurs first team, and saw his powers at the club increase while Pochettino was in charge.
McDermott worked alongside Pochettino at Spurs and Southgate with England (Eddie Keogh – The FA/The FA via Getty Images)
McDermott joined the FA four months after Pochettino was sacked for Jose Mourinho, and he initially joined as Les Reed’s assistant technical director before stepping into his job in 2021. Since then, he has worked closely with Southgate and has been a visible presence at England camps during major tournaments.
So McDermott and Mark Bullingham, the FA chief executive, now have a huge role in determining the future of English football. The decision they make in the next few weeks will shape their legacies in their jobs.
There is an acceptance at the FA that the England men’s managerial job is unique in football. The FA is looking for someone with distinct skills, qualities and experiences to be able to do the job. It is also determined to cast the net as wide as possible in its search for the right candidate — and that means that it will look at non-English candidates as well as English ones.
That does not in itself mean the FA will necessarily go back down the route of appointing a high-profile foreign manager, as it did with Sven-Goran Eriksson in 2000 or Fabio Capello in 2007. Rather, that being English is not a criterion it is currently looking for.
This is still the very start of the process, so it is not clear at this point exactly how the various interview and due diligence stages will look. It is also not clear whether Southgate himself will play a role. He is still contracted to the FA until the end of the year and it would not be uncommon during a due diligence stage for the departing employee to be consulted.
Ultimately, even if being English is not a requirement for the job, the two leading candidates for the job are both from this country: Eddie Howe and Graham Potter, arguably the two best young English managers in the club game over the past few years.
Howe has been at Newcastle United since November 2021 and has guided them to fourth and seventh-placed finishes over his two full seasons at the club. Appointing Howe would be complicated by the fact that he is already in a job, and on Tuesday, Newcastle CEO Darren Eales insisted that they would fight to keep him and that the FA would in theory have to pay compensation because Howe signed a “multi-year” extension to his contract last summer.
“For us, he is exactly the right man for the project we are on at Newcastle United and that is why we are committed to a long-term deal with him,” said Eales. “That’s why we think he’s the right man for Newcastle. We love him.”
So far there has been no contact with anyone about the now-vacant England role, and Howe is himself busily focusing on preparing Newcastle for next season. But while, for now, the issue remains hypothetical, if the FA were to offer Howe the England job, it would be very difficult for him to turn down.
Two months ago, Howe did an interview with Gary Neville for The Overlap in which he explained how much England meant to him.
“My big memory from my early years was forming a love with England and really wanting them to do well in the major tournaments, and having that feeling of devastation when they didn’t quite get over the line,” he said.
“I loved that feeling of watching the national team; I was really submerged in it. I love England, and I hope England go on this summer and win the Euros, I think they can — I love Gareth (and) I’ve got a real determination for that to happen. I’ve never really thought about international football for me, personally, (but) who knows what will happen in the future.”
The FA has appointed England managers from Premier League clubs in the past, taking Sam Allardyce from Sunderland in 2016 and Roy Hodgson from West Bromwich Albion in 2012. Negotiating with Newcastle might be a different matter. But the potential gap between Howe’s Newcastle salary and what he might earn with England is not likely to be a problem.
Potter and Howe are among the contenders for the England job (Robin Jones – AFC Bournemouth/AFC Bournemouth via Getty Images)
Then there is Potter. He has been out of work since he was sacked by Chelsea in April 2023 after less than seven months at Stamford Bridge. While his time at Chelsea was difficult, Potter managed Brighton & Hove Albion for three years before that, guiding them to a ninth-placed finish in 2021-22 before he left for Chelsea. Before then, he had impressed with Ostersund in Sweden and Swansea City in the Championship.
If Potter was the chosen candidate, he would be an easier move for the FA, and he is still available having turned down a return to the Premier League with Leicester City just last month.
If the FA decided that it wanted someone who has direct experience of the England set-up and St George’s Park — as Southgate had when he was appointed — it could promote Lee Carsley to the job permanently, or make him part of the back-room staff of a different permanent choice.
The FA will be considering non-English options too. Jurgen Klopp has no interest in an immediate return to management after leaving Liverpool and while Thomas Tuchel has a long-term interest in the role, the likeliest of the foreign options is perhaps Pochettino. The Argentinian left Chelsea at the end of the season, having turned their form around and guided them to a sixth-placed finish in the league. He has a track record of bringing through young English players at Southampton, Spurs and Chelsea, as well as a close working relationship with McDermott.
Equally, McDermott is known to be very independent-minded and not necessarily guided by reuniting with people he has worked with before. Of the England squad at the Euros, Harry Kane, Kyle Walker, Luke Shaw, Cole Palmer, Conor Gallagher and Kieran Trippier all developed significantly under Pochettino’s coaching.
Before the 2022 World Cup, Pochettino told The Athletic that the door was open to managing England.
“Of course, my relationship with England has always been very good,” he said when asked about the England job. “We have a very good relationship with the academies, trying to develop young players for the national team. I feel so comfortable here. You never know what happens. I am open to everything.”
(Top photos: Getty Images)
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