If Gareth Southgate leaves the England job now, he will go down in history as the king of missed opportunities.
In isolation, it is understandable that a young side came up short in a World Cup semi-final against Croatia four years ago. As a one-off, it is hard to be too critical of a team who reach the Euro 2020 final on home soil and suffer heartbreak in a shoot-out.
And nobody can deny England played well against France last weekend. But to miss out on all three occasions begs the question: Why do England always find a way to lose when the big prizes are there for the taking?
Look, Southgate is a lovely guy and, at face value, there is no shame in reaching a quarter-final, semi-final and final at your three major tournaments in charge. But the brutal truth is that England should have been involved in this weekend's World Cup final – and they missed the boat.
They had their strongest possible squad available, and to reach the final they had to get past Iran, Wales, USA, Senegal, France and Morocco – not the most treacherous route imaginable. Yet they found a way to lose when the door was not just ajar. It was wide open.
France are the defending champions, so they were never going to be pushovers, but they were missing at least four major players: Karim Benzema, N'Golo Kante, Paul Pogba and Christopher Nkunku.
Let's not sugar-coat it: England lost to a weakened French team. What an opportunity to let go begging! Since 1966, every time they have come up against a major football nation in a knockout World Cup tie, England have gone out.
They have beaten Paraguay (1986), Belgium and Cameroon (1990), Denmark (2002), Ecuador (2006), Colombia and Sweden (2018) and Senegal (2022) – as you would expect.
Not once have they turned over one of the big guns – West Germany (1970 and 1990), Argentina (1986 and 1998), Brazil (2002), Portugal (2006), Germany (2010), Croatia (2018) and France (2022) when it really mattered. Whatever people say about how well they played, or how unlucky they were, those are the facts.
I'm not rushing Southgate out of the door because he has developed a wonderful culture of togetherness in his squad. And his players clearly like playing for him. But if he goes now, with the most knockout wins of any England manager, does he run the risk of it all crashing down?
