Comedian Frank Skinner has said that England's men's football team lacked a 'killer instinct' under Gareth Southgate, suggesting that the former manager's 'nice bloke' persona was a hindrance. Skinner believes that Thomas Tuchel's more abrasive approach could help the team end a 60-year trophy drought at major tournaments.
Speaking to the Guardian, Skinner, who co-wrote a new poem about football fandom ahead of Euro 2028, said: 'I think he lacked the killer instinct. I think he was a really nice bloke and that was the problem. Because I don't think Alf Ramsey was a really nice bloke, and that's probably why we won the World Cup because he was prepared to drop Jimmy Greaves.'
Under Southgate, England reached two European Championship finals, losing to Italy in 2020 and Spain in 2024. The manager faced criticism for a conservative playing style. Skinner likened England under Southgate to a dog on a lead, saying: 'It's great when the dog's running around and comes back to you. But he never let England off the lead.'
How Skinner Would Have Portrayed Southgate
Asked how he would have depicted Southgate on the 1990s comedy show Fantasy Football League, which he co-hosted with David Baddiel, Skinner said: 'I think we would have made him a nervous, twitchy, Anglican vicar. I'm not saying that would have been right, but that's what we would have done.'
Skinner described Tuchel, once called a 'perfectionist' and 'workaholic' by the Guardian, as a manager who could help England embrace a braver style. 'At Chelsea, he was quite fiery and a complicated presence. He's got a slight madness about him, which I think you probably need to win it. So when Luke Shaw scores in the first 10 minutes, you don't say: 'Right, let's see if we can park the bus and keep this safe.' You just keep going.'
New Poem and Euro 2028
Skinner has co-written a spoken-word piece alongside former players from the home nations, including ex-England international Izzy Christiansen and former Newcastle and Northern Ireland winger Keith Gillespie. The piece offers an inclusive vision of modern fandom ahead of the 2028 Euros, which will be hosted jointly by England, Scotland, Wales, and the Republic of Ireland.
A typical line reads: 'The wall chart's unfolded, the face-paint's been bought / The team in your sticker book's just two men short.'
This year marks the 30th anniversary of Three Lions, the self-deprecating anthem about England fandom that has reached number one in the UK four times. Skinner, a West Bromwich Albion fan, called the song 'patriotism lite' at a time when racism was still prominent in fan culture. 'No one ever sang World in Motion at a football ground,' he said, referencing New Order's Italia 90 single. 'In those days, they just sang 'England, England.' Nobody sang actual songs, so Three Lions was revolutionary in that respect.'
'Dear England' TV Adaptation
The first two episodes of Dear England, a BBC adaptation of James Graham's award-winning play, will air on 24 May. The play, which won two Olivier awards in 2024 including best new play, charts the Southgate era's ups and downs. Skinner said: 'It's really not about football. It's about a bloke stepping into a world like that, into that job and actually bringing real decency to it and compassion to it.'
However, Skinner expressed concern over the portrayal of Southgate's penalty miss at Euro 96. 'They suggested that Gareth Southgate had volunteered to take that penalty,' he said, noting that Southgate had said in a Dimbleby lecture that he felt he couldn't say no to his hero Bryan Robson, England's assistant coach, who asked him to take the sixth spot kick. 'That's quite a big change because that's a seminal moment in his life. That's like finding out that they didn't burn Joan of Arc and she lived a happy retirement.'
