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England’s men’s football team “lacked a killer instinct” under Gareth Southgate, according to comedian Frank Skinner, who says Thomas Tuchel’s more abrasive style could help break the team’s 60-year trophy drought at major tournaments.
Skinner, who has co-written a new poem about football fandom and the home nations ahead of Euro 2028, told the Guardian that he believes England ultimately fell at the final hurdle under Southgate because he was too much of a “nice bloke”.
“I think he lacked the killer instinct,” says Skinner of Southgate. “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’s men’s team reached two Euro finals, losing both of them – to Italy in 2020 and Spain in 2024 – with the manager facing criticism for what many deemed a conservative playing style.
Skinner likened England under Southgate to a dog being walked on a lead that was crying out to be released. “It’s great when the dog’s running around and comes back to you,” he said. “But he never let England off the lead.”
Asked how he would have represented Southgate on Fantasy Football League, the weekly comedy show about football he hosted with David Baddiel in the 1990s, 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.”
He said Tuchel, once described by the Guardian as a “perfectionist” and a “workaholic”, could help England win at this summer’s World Cup by embracing a braver playing style. “At Chelsea, he was quite fiery and a complicated presence,” said Skinner.
“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.”
Skinner has co-written a spoken-word piece alongside players from the home nations, including former England international Izzy Christiansen and former Newcastle and Northern Ireland winger Keith Gillespie.
The comedian, who has written a short book on verse (How to Enjoy Poetry), and presents Frank Skinner’s Poetry Podcast, says the piece is an inclusive vision of modern fandom ahead of the 2028 Euros tournament that will be held jointly by England, Scotland, Wales and the Republic of Ireland.
“The wall chart’s unfolded, the face-paint’s been bought / The team in your sticker book’s just two men short,” is a typical line.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of Three Lions, the anthemic, self deprecating song about England fandom, which has been No 1 four times in the UK.
Skinner, a West Bromwich Albion fan, said the single was an example of “patriotism lite” at a time when racism was a still a big part of fan culture in the UK.
“No one ever sang World in Motion at a football ground,” says Skinner, 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.”
The first two episodes of Dear England, the BBC TV adaptation of James Graham’s multi award-winning play of the same name, will air on 24 May. It charts the Southgate era’s ups and downs, and won two Olivier awards – including best new play – in 2024.
“It’s really not about football,” says Skinner of the play turned TV show. “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.”
But he did have a concern over the portrayal of Southgate’s penalty miss at Euro 96.
“They suggested that Gareth Southgate had volunteered to take that penalty,” says Skinner who’d watched the manager’s Dimbleby lecture where he said he felt he couldn’t say no to his hero Bryan Robson, England’s assistant coach, who’d asked him to take the sixth spot kick.
“That’s quite a big change because that’s a seminal moment in his life,” says Skinner. That’s like finding out that they didn’t burn Joan of Arc and she lived a happy retirement.”
