England must stop being good losers.. they need a snarling Dennis Wise in there to wind up the opposition
OK England, now what are we going to do?
Are we going to get to the next level and win Euro 2024 and mount a serious challenge for the World Cup in 2026?
Right now we are top eight but we are not winning material. We have to alter the mindset.
We have talented players who can match some of the very best but we have to change our mental approach.
Argentina didn’t win the World Cup with the best team but boy did they have the right attitude.
We have to believe we can beat the best. Don’t put ourselves down and think we are inferior.
France did us in the World Cup quarter-final because they knew how to do the job.
Some England fans have been saying we were done by the worst refereeing in the tournament but I thought it was OK.
That was an excuse for us not getting through.
Kylian Mbappe may have scored a hat-trick in the final but I’m telling you that Bukayo Saka outshone him in our game.
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We have the talent in the likes of Saka, Jude Bellingham and Phil Foden.
Of course, the task is not going to get easier. Mbappe will get better and thank God Lionel Messi’s played his last World Cup, which takes one problem out of the equation.
But we’ve still got the likes of Portugal and Spain to worry about and the African nations are improving.
Like a lot of countries we’re still lacking defensively. A good defensive coach would not go amiss.
I don’t want to sound like a broken record but now that Gareth Southgate is staying, I repeat my advice that he should call on one or two old experienced heads for advice from time to time.
He doesn’t have to make it public but it would help him.
And, as I’ve said before, we have to stop being good losers. We have to absolutely hate defeat.
I’m not interested in the fair play trophy which we won in Qatar with Harry Maguire getting our only yellow card.
I’d like to see us get a bit ‘Dennis Wise’. Wisey used to shake opponents’ hands, scrape them with his nails and stamp on their foot as he did it.
I don’t want us to be cuddling opponents in the tunnel and laughing and joking with them. I want us to hate them and to make it as uncomfortable as possible for them.
We need an edge to move forward. We need more aggression.
And I want to see us play with the type of swagger which says, “We are better than you”. It’s not arrogance, it’s confidence.
We have the talent, it’s that mindset that’s missing. We have to believe we are every bit as good as the opposition if not better.
I remember many years ago, Arsenal coach Don Howe sitting me and Martin Keown down and telling us Arsenal were too soft and that was why we hadn’t won the league title since 1971.
He was sick of teams like Liverpool coming to Highbury and knowing they could roll us over.
He told us we had to get nasty, become impossible to beat and make them really fear playing against us.
They had to know they had been in a game. Reputations would mean nothing.
He said it might take a few years but eventually we would win things and he was right. We became ruthless. We decided it was our turn.
If England adopt that type of attitude we might yet turn into winners.