Gary Neville believes English football suffers from a lack of a “clear identity” and its coaches are “not good enough” to take on top jobs.
Neville was speaking in the wake of Thomas Tuchel being named the new England boss this morning on a deal that will see him lead the Three Lions until at least the end of the 2026 World Cup.
The list of candidates for the role included Englishmen Eddie Howe and Graham Potter but they were overlooked in favour of the German, who has won trophies at Borussia Dortmund, Paris Saint-Germain, Chelsea and Bayern Munich.
📰 Table Of Contents
‘We’re in a rut’
Former England full-back Neville told Sky Sports: “Let’s be really clear, as a country with the Premier League we’ve benefited hugely from the international players and coaches that have come to our country.
“I think the league’s the best in the world at the moment because of Pep Guardiola, Jurgen Klopp, Mauricio Pochettino, Jose Mourinho and all those coaches we’ve had in the league in the last six, seven, eight years. It’s outstanding and I wouldn’t change it for the world.
“[But] We are in a rut when it comes to English coaching. English coaching is one of the least respected big nations in Europe when it comes to taking charge of a football team. Spanish, German, Italian coaches, Portuguese coaches are renowned for their styles of play, for their philosophy.
“We don’t have a clear identity as an English nation of what we are anymore. We haven’t built a style, we haven’t got a coach who’s built a style that’s unique to us and we’ve seen coaches from all around Europe come and input their styles into our game and we’ve copied their styles and we’re trying to copy what they do without really developing our own style.
“I think to me at this moment in time, my view is that we need to build an identity as an English country in terms of what our style of play is and let English coaches flourish and St George’s Park was set up to do that.”
3 – Among managers to take charge of 50+ games in the UEFA Champions League, Thomas Tuchel has the third-highest win percentage in the tournament’s history (59.7%). Elite. pic.twitter.com/mEhJ14ugMw
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) October 16, 2024
Neville – it’s not good enough
Tuchel succeeds Watford-born Gareth Southgate, whose CV was modest when he took over the England job in 2016 but led his country to the semi-finals of the World Cup in 2018 and successive European Championship finals in 2021 and 2024.
Neville added: “Gareth Southgate didn’t have great experience at the highest level as a coach when he took the England job, he’d been with the 21s previously.
“He wasn’t a very fashionable choice at the time but he’s taken England to semifinals and finals over the last three or four tournaments and nearly got us over the line.
“So he’s proven that without Champions League experience as a coach, that you can be successful in international football and that’s been proven with other countries as well.
“My only thing here is where is English coaching going, where are English coaches going to get the chance and there is that very brutal harsh look where you could say, well it’s not good enough, they’re not good enough, they have to basically get themselves better.”
