I’m proud of our England team.
Proud of the way that they took the game and, at times, dominated the defending world champions. Proud of the bravery Gareth Southgate showed to stick to the way we play and force them to worry about us, not have us cowering fear of Kylian Mbappe.
And proud of the way that Bukayo Saka put himself at the centre of everything positive that we did to enhance his status as potentially world class. Of course, I’m not happy with losing and I’m certainly not embracing glorious failure. We were unlucky. It happens. But Gareth has to stay. Surely.
I’d love him to. I know lots of people have their opinions on who could do a better job. But international football is not club football and half the battle is creating that harmony within the squad. Gareth has been superb at that.
I’ve written in this column before about when he arrived and there was that hangover from the previous reign where players didn’t want to join up. Players didn’t want to mix. When they ate, they stayed in cliques and disappeared from the communal areas soon afterwards. Gareth has changed all of that.
There are no divisions between the players that play and those who don’t. You don’t get players desperate to pull out with 'injuries'. I’ve heard substitute and back-up players talking about just how much they love the experience and being around the camp. That's all down to Gareth.
Can England go all the way at Euro 2024? Have your say in the comments!
He uses his experience as an international player and puts it into practice as a manager. In the last three tournaments, we’ve been to the semi-finals, a final - penalty kicks away from success - and a quarter-final, where we held our own against France.
I don’t blame Harry Kane for us going out. He has so much to do with us getting there in the first place. He’d scored 17 of his previous 20 penalties before the one he missed on Saturday night. He plays in the same club side as the France goalkeeper Hugo Lloris and Hugo psyched him out.
Even the first penalty - which Harry scored - was fascinating to watch. Hugo would have studied him inside out at club level. He’d have faced him in training on countless occasions. So I felt as though the advantage would be with Hugo.
But when that first one went in, I felt relief, as if Harry had won the mind games and was buzzing for the second one. But then the odds for the second one shortened.
Harry didn't want to play the mind games any more. He didn't want to try and send the keep the wrong way. He just thought: 'I'm gonna put it into the top corner, so that even if he does get the right way, he's going to have no chance of saving it'.
Unfortunately, he's just put a bit too much power on it and that was the end of us. But I look at the way we played and I look at the confidence we have and no way would I give up on a major trophy.
In fact, I look at players like Saka, Phil Foden, Jude Bellingham, Declan Rice, Kalvin Phllips, Jack Grealish, Marcus Rashford and Kane, who will be 32 in a couple of years’ time and I think: ‘Bring on Euro2024’.
