Gary Lineker tips former Chelsea boss to replace Gareth Southgate as England manager
Former England striker Gary Lineker has tipped Frank Lampard to become the new Three Lions boss if Gareth Southgate leaves his job after Euro 2024.
The Three Lions produced an improved performance as they drew 1-1 against Switzerland on Saturday and still required penalties to book their place in the Euro 2024 semi-finals.
England will meet the Netherlands in the final four after Southgate’s men held their nerve to emerge victorious on spot-kicks after Bukayo Saka cancelled out Breel Embolo’s opener for the Swiss.
Southgate has taken a lot of criticism throughout the tournament as England have failed to produce the sparkling displays expected of them and he is expected to leave his post as Three Lions manager whether the Three Lions win Euro 2024 or not.
And Lineker – who has been criticised by England players for calling their performance “s**t” against Denmark in the group stage – reckons former Chelsea boss Lampard would be a good candidate to replace Southgate.
We definitely need to learn to disagree with Lineker.
“This will be Gareth Southgate’s last tournament,” Lineker said on The Rest Is Football podcast.
“I think, whatever happens. If he wins, I think he’ll absolutely bow out, and if he doesn’t then I think he’ll bow out. It’ll be his decision.
“But I wouldn’t disregard Frank Lampard. I think he tactically gets it. I think the players will respect him immediately. I’m getting ahead of things here.
“If you’re going to go English, you go… who else? Eddie Howe? Eddie Howe, possibly?”
Lineker also said of Lampard: “I think he’s been a bit unlucky in his managerial career in some ways. I think he gets it tactically.”
Lampard has been in charge of Derby, Chelsea and Everton in his managerial career and Richards also has sympathy over the England midfielder’s record as a manager.
“When he went to Derby, I think the feeling was he played really good football, but it should have got them up,” Richards said.
“He went to Chelsea [during] the transfer embargo and still managed to get top four, with all the bringing the young players through, [Tammy] Abraham, [Mason] Mount, etc, etc. Then he went to Everton, kept them up.
“It wasn’t the great style of play but he utilised what he had available to him. He goes, obviously, back to Chelsea. I think that was the one where people were judging him. It can be chaos, Chelsea.”
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Lampard was part of the BBC team for the England match against Switzerland and Richards hailed the ex-Chelsea star for his “articulate” analysis of the match.
Richards added: “Frank’s analysis was about three minutes. And, normally, if someone goes that deep, after maybe two minutes, you’ve lost interest. But I was glued to it for three minutes. And you can tell he’s just got something.
“He’s articulate. The way he explains points. You can tell there’s a manager there inside of him.
“I’ve really enjoyed working with him [Lampard]. I’ve worked with a lot of people, Thierry Henry, [is] really good analytically, Roberto Martinez, Alan Shearer I thought did brilliantly on co-comms today, Danny Murphy is really good at the tactical side of the game, [Jamie] Carragher is one of my favourites, they are able to explain and break down the game.”
