Comedian Frank Skinner has weighed in on the England men's football team, suggesting that former manager Gareth Southgate was 'too nice' and lacked the 'killer instinct' needed to end the country's 60-year trophy drought. Speaking to the Guardian, Skinner argued that Thomas Tuchel, Southgate's successor, could bring a 'braver' style and help England succeed at major tournaments.
Skinner on Southgate
Skinner, who co-wrote the iconic football anthem 'Three Lions', said Southgate's downfall was his amiable nature. 'I think he lacked the killer instinct,' Skinner said. '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. Critics often pointed to a conservative playing style. Skinner likened England under Southgate to a dog on a lead, 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 portrayed Southgate on the 1990s comedy show Fantasy Football League, Skinner replied: '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.'
Tuchel's Potential
Skinner believes Thomas Tuchel, described by the Guardian as a 'perfectionist' and 'workaholic', could help England win the upcoming World Cup by embracing a more attacking approach. 'At Chelsea, he was quite fiery and a complicated presence,' Skinner said. '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.'
Three Lions and Euro 2028
Skinner has co-written a spoken-word piece with former players from the home nations, including England's Izzy Christiansen and Northern Ireland's Keith Gillespie, ahead of the Euro 2028 tournament to be hosted 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 anthem that has reached number one in the UK four times. Skinner, a West Bromwich Albion fan, described the song as 'patriotism lite' at a time when racism was still prevalent in fan culture. 'No one ever sang 'World in Motion' at a football ground,' he said, referencing New Order's 1990 single. 'In those days, they just sang 'England, England.' Nobody sang actual songs, so Three Lions was revolutionary in that respect.'
Dear England
The first two episodes of Dear England, the BBC adaptation of James Graham's award-winning play, air on 24 May. The play charts the Southgate era and won two Olivier awards in 2024. Skinner said the play is '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,' said Skinner, who noted that Southgate had said in his 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.'
