Goodbye to Gareth

And so, the day after, England manager Gareth Southgate resigned from the post, with the dignity and honesty he brought to the role in 2016.

Its hard to say now how history will judge his time, but probably very favourably.

In four end of season tournaments, two World Cups and two Euros, his England reached a semi final, a final, a quater final and another final. More in those eight years than all England managers had achieved. Ever.

Only Alf Ramsey did better by winning a World Cup, but only reached the knock out stages twice.

So, if we judge him on tournaments, then he was the best England manager ever.

If we look at win percentages, its different, but not different. His final total lower due to poor results prior to this year's Euros. But here is the facts and figures:

Don Revie: 48.3%

Ron Greenwood: 60%

Bobby Robson: 49.5%

Graham Taylor: 47.4%

Terry Venables: 45.8%

Glen Hoddle 60.7%

Kevin Keegan: 38.9%

Sven-Goran Eriksson: 59.7%

Steve McLaren: 50%

Fabio Capello: 66.7%

Roy Hodgson: 58.9%

Sam Allardyce: 100% (1 game)

Gareth Southgate: 59.8%

So, for the most part, most managers have been little better or worse than any other. There's a couple of outliers, and who would have had Capello has the manager with the highest win percentage?

Southgate's wins included many when it counted, in qualifying and in touurnaments, getting at least to the last eight every time.He also managed England 102 times, the most over and so sustained that success for longer than any other as well.

Could England have played better this summer? For sure, but winning tournaments is seldom about entertainment, its about winning games. And under Gareth, England won games and won them when it mattered. However, there are those who thinlk that with the resources at his disposal, England should have played better, scored more goals, been more entertaining.

Whatever the case, he is gone. And the FA have to find a replacement now, and do so before the next international in September, with the obvious candidate, Eddie Howe, ruled out by his employers.

As we can see from the above, it matters little, England will win between 50 and 60% of their games, and might get to another final and might win. Or might not. No one has the right to win, not even England.