# England Are Playing Their Best Football in Years and Nobody Wants to Admit Gareth Southgate's Replacement Was the Right Call

The same people who demanded change are now too proud to admit the change worked.

England are playing football that is actually good to watch. Not "decent for England" good. Not "well they kept it tight" good. Genuinely good. Purposeful passing. High press that holds for more than twenty minutes. A midfield that controls rather than just competes. This is a different team to the one that shuffled out of Euro 2024 on penalties and looked relieved to be going home.

The Southgate Hangover Was Real

Southgate gave us three semi-finals and a final. That record is legitimate and it will not be rewritten. But by the end, the football had become a kind of organised caution. Every game felt like England were protecting something. A lead they did not have. A reputation that was already cracking. The players looked like they were waiting for permission to be good.

The departure was the right call. Not because Southgate was a bad manager. Because the cycle was done. Six years of tournament football had produced a ceiling and everyone in the building knew it.

The Rebuild People Said Would Take Years

When the new setup came in, the noise was relentless. Too inexperienced. Wrong philosophy. Give it three years before you judge anything. The media spent the best part of a year treating every friendly as evidence of incoming disaster.

That noise has gone very quiet.

England's structure now is coherent. There is an actual idea behind the shape. The full-backs push high and they know what to do when they get there. The striker holds, links, and presses — not one or the other. The centre-backs are comfortable playing out. These things do not happen by accident.

The Players Who Were Always There

Here is the part that gets missed. The players did not suddenly become better. They were always capable of this. Jude Bellingham at Real Madrid has been doing this every week for two years. The question was whether the international setup would let him express it properly. It is finally doing that. He is running games instead of running around in them.

Saka has been England's most consistent performer for three years. He now has a system around him that uses what he does rather than asking him to do something else. That small shift in thinking has made him twice the threat he was before.

Phil Foden in his proper position — central, free to find pockets — is a different player to the one who was drifting wide and looking frustrated at tournament after tournament.

None of this is new talent. It is existing talent being managed properly.

What Actually Changed

The pressing trigger is sharper. England now win the ball higher up the pitch. That is a tactical decision and it is working. The tempo in possession is higher. They are not afraid to play through the press. These are coachable things. They are being coached.

The squad culture looks different too. Tighter. Less noise from outside the camp bleeding in. The players look like they actually want to be there, which sounds like a low bar, but watch the footage from 2021 and 2022 and you can see the difference in body language.

Give the Process Its Credit

English football has a bad habit. We refuse to credit the right things at the right time. We panic early and we crow late. The rebuild was questioned before it had started and the results that have come since are being treated as inevitable rather than earned.

They were not inevitable. Someone made good decisions. The decisions worked.

Our Verdict

England are a better side than they have been in a long time. Not potential. Actual. On the pitch, in the games, right now. The proof is in the performances and the performances are there for anyone willing to look at them honestly.

Admit it. The call was right.

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