The 2024 Euros are a wrap and no football did not come home this time as well. It was the same story from the 2020 final with England losing.
Thanks to a late goal from Mikel Oyarzabal, Spain lifted their 4th Cup, leaving a lot of questions surrounding Gareth Southgate. Despite the failure to go all the way, the England HC has the backing of many and one of his vocal backers is Jamie Carragher.
But if you expected to wake up and see Carragher going ballistic over random X users, you’d be lying. That’s what happened after England’s loss, and it wasn’t pretty. ‘Shut up you tit, & stop asking me to get other footballers to follow you!!’ Carragher wrote, replying to an X user (formerly known as Twitter). But why suddenly this unexpected call out?
The footballer-turned-pundit took to social media to defend Southgate after mass criticism ensued in the aftermath of England’s loss. Showing his support to his former teammate, Carragher put the players in the firing line, questioning their efforts in the final.
‘Sven played 442, Fabio was too strict, Gareth is too defensive! Funny how it’s always on the manager isn’t it?!! The fact is our big players didn’t turn up in this tournament. And other tournaments going back years,’ the former Liverpool defender wrote on X.
The X user Europeanlad, took issue with Carragher’s reasoning and raised doubts over Southgate’s contribution.
Comparing him with Spanish coach Luis de la Fuente, europeanlad replied, ‘Luis de la Fuente has a much worse squad but lets his team ball every single game, while Southgate can hardly make his team look enjoyable for more than 5 minutes. What is it with English pundits and defending that garbage manager.’
Carragher fired back by replying, ‘International football is not littered with top managers, it’s about the players. Ours froze in that first half, allowing the keeper to go long & not demanding the ball & showing for it.’
But, europeanlad didn’t have any of it. He compared Southgate with Colombian coach Nestor Lorenzo who led the team to the Copa America final.
‘Watching the Copa America final Jamie? Another team with a squad 20x worse than England while playing 20x better football. But surely it’s not Southgate’s fault,’ europeanlad went at him again.
And this was where things took an ugly turn as after this, the former England international destroyed the Ajax fan by calling him a ‘tit’ and exposed him for begging for followers.
Carragher even proceeded to shut down these arguments for good with a video uploaded by Sky Sports.
”Are we are a nation who wins trophies? We’re not Brazil. You know, we’re not we’re not a team who’s got a history or journey of winning trophies for years years. Yes. We wanna change that,’ the Sky Sports pundit said.
“But so I can’t see too many managers look at licking their lips and thinking, ‘oh, yeah. I wanna set this off. I’ve got a Southgate.’ There’s not much not not much we need to improve with that. We keep being obsessed by these great managers at international level.
I can guarantee you most people in England, if not 90, 95 percent, have never heard of a Spanish manager before this tournament. Never heard of them. The top managers are in the champions league because that’s where they wanna be. International football for me is about the players,’ Carragher concluded.
Rumours surrounding Southgate indicate that he’ll be in charge till 2026, so for now, Carragher has not much to worry about his former running mate.