GARY LINEKER appeared to suggest that England’s heartbreaking defeat to Spain might be Gareth Southgate’s last ever game as a manager.
The Three Lions fell short again as Spain beat them 2-1 in the Euro 2024 final.
Just like three years ago when they were within touching distance of glory but lost to Italy on penalties, the tournament ended with Southgate picking up a runners-up medal.
And the latest agonising defeat could lead to the boss calling it a day on his career, according to Lineker.
The BBC presenter appeared to drop a hint that Southgate would retire as he said post-match: “I suspect this might be his last game in management.”
Lineker later called being England manager “the impossible job” and he believes “Southgate may have had enough”.
And on England’s defensive approach to the tournament compared to Spain’s free-flowing possession style, the former England striker said: “It is a victory for attacking football.”
The FA supposedly want Southgate to stay in the job for the 2026 World Cup.
But the 53-year-old refused to decide his future last night: “I think England are in a really good position in terms of the experiences they’ve got now.
“The age of the squad – most of this squad are going to be around not only for the World Cup but the next Euros as well.
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“There’s a lot to look forward to but this moment is not any consolation.
“I don’t think now is a good time to make a decision like that.
“I need to talk to the right people. It’s not for now.”
Should Southgate step down, Graham Potter and Eddie Howe are among the names in contention to take over.
IT will take a while for me and every England fan to get over this, writes Jack Wilshere.
To come so close to winning that trophy, only to be beaten in a second Euros final in a row, is a huge disappointment.
Especially when it really felt like this was our time.
It seemed that everything was coming together for us to end the long wait for a major title.
But Spain deserved it. They were the better team in the final and the best team of the tournament.
We will all — supporters, players, coaches, the FA — have to move on and go again.
Because English football is still in a good position.
Gareth Southgate has taken us to two finals, a semi-final and a quarter-final in four tournaments. We have never produced a run like that before.
The challenge now is to maintain this level of competitiveness and make England even better.
Southgate and his staff have done a fantastic job in changing the whole environment and narrative around the national team.
Whether Gareth carries on or not, the wider culture he has put in place must be preserved.
This tournament was the biggest test of that culture the team had to go through.
They overcame the problems and went all the way, only to fall at the final hurdle.
But there is every reason to believe we can challenge at the World Cup in 2026 and beyond.
We’ve got a really good group of players, many of them young, who can go on playing and performing for England for years.
Jude Bellingham, Kobbie Mainoo, Bukayo Saka, Phil Foden and Cole Palmer — to name just five — have plenty more tournaments in them.
This tournament will also be an inspiration for the next generations of players. Unfortunately there isn’t the trophy lift to take that to a completely different level.
But England have delivered moments in Germany that will be replayed forever.
The Bellingham overhead kick and Ollie Watkins’ semi-final winner will be recreated in playgrounds and cages up and down the country.
What I would like to see now is England continuing to develop, to become a team that can consistently dominate opponents and can give a real identity to English football.
We now have players who are comfortable on the ball and technically very good.
The biggest disappointment of the tournament was that we didn’t see that as often as we would have liked. That leaves us with a ‘what if?’ feeling.
England must not lose that old-school mentality of finding a way to win even when you’re not playing well — that never-say-die spirit which got us through this Euros more than once.
But the next step is to allow other qualities to shine through, to give the players that our system is creating the platform to show everything they can do.
The job for me and for other coaches is to keep producing players that are comfortable on the ball and understand how to perform under pressure at a high level.
English football is in a good place but we need to keep going. Then we will finally get over the line.
Real all of SunSport columnist Jack Wilshere’s Euro 2024 columns…
