Former England defender Rio Ferdinand has questioned Gareth Southgate's changes in England's World Cup exit, amid speculation over the manager's future.
Southgate didn't make a change until the 79th minute, by which point England were 2-1 down against reigning world champions France. One of his subs, Mason Mount, won a penalty, only for Harry Kane to miss the target and confirm England's exit.
FA chief executive Mark Bullingham praised Southgate and his team despite the quarter-final defeat, while Southgate himself suggested no one would rush into decisions. Ferdinand recognised the boss may well want to stay and finished what he has started - with a World Cup semi-final and European Championships final before this tournament - but pointed to areas where England could have done things differently against France.
"Our substitutions is where I think Gareth Southgate let us down," Ferdinand said on his Vibe with Five YouTube show. "I think he's been pitch-perfect, touch-perfect in almost every decision he's made up to this point, but you get into a game like yesterday where this is really where it matters now, and I think Gareth Southgate came up short in the tactical element in terms of substitutions.
"That's part of tactics, making substitutions, and in-game management and deciding games with substitutions at the business end of a tournament, I think he would hold his hands up maybe in retrospect. I threw a text in the group, and I stand by this: Gareth, in the moment, wasn't proactive with his substitutions, he was reactive.
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"It hit 1-1 and we're sitting there going 'take the bull by the horns, make a substitution, get us on the front foot'," Ferdinand continued. "You've got Rashford, you've got Grealish who can go on, get us on the front foot and change this game.
"You're sitting there going 'It's too late, man'. You've got to do this when we've got the chance of still winning this game and taking the game from them."
England did eventually introduce the likes of Rashford and Grealish, but it was too late to salvage a result. Kane's late penalty miss was the biggest chance, while Rashford was narrowly off-target with a free-kick in stoppage-time.
Despite the result, though, Ferdinand isn't convinced this is the end for the manager. "I think, if I am Gareth Southgate, I can not leave this story," he said. "This story hasn't had an ending yet that works for me, if I'm Gareth Southgate.
"I see a list of the players, the age range of these players, the profile of the players he has at his disposal, it's the stuff of dreams. You've got a... set of players here who, if you get it right, can go on to win things.
"They have to be able to win things with these players, it's an unbelievable collection of players, but he has to say to himself 'Am I the man to manage them and navigate them through this period and to get the best out of these players?'. Now at the moment he hasn't done that because he hasn't won it, and he has to make that decision - we can't make that decision for him."
