He built the best England team of the past 50 years, but who could blame the manager if he walks away from needless hostility?
Always leave them wanting more. Fat chance. Nobody has ever really wanted much more of an England football manager. Such is the basic nature of the job, from the early embrace to the howls and bellows of the extended endgame; to be England manager is to act as a kind of public outrage service, a witch-dunking, a burning of the waistcoated wicker man. Come here to wail and froth about the state of England. In bad times and – it turns out – in good ones, too.
By now there are really only two ways out of this thing. Exit in a haze of well-earned abuse; or exit in a haze of undeserved abuse. With England’s World Cup exit stamped and processed Gareth Southgate does at least have the option right now to take the second of these.
