Sack Gareth Southgate? Are you kidding me? asks Mickey Ambrose

To be honest it was always going to happen. Yes, you could say the England team didn’t show up for the game against Hungary, but, hey, now we can re-group and Gareth Southgate and his management team can take stock of the situation and correct it before the FIFA World Cup starts in Qatar.

The Three Lions suffered their heaviest home defeat since March 1928, the year sliced bread was invented by Otto Rohwedder. And Hungary did just that, they easily sliced through England’s shaky defence. England provided easy pickings for a Hungarian side that were, dare I say it, ‘hungry’ for the win. They wanted to impress and they wanted this victory more than England, it seemed.

I’m going to have to put these performances down to tired legs and fatigue after a heavy season. The players are human and not robots. And yes, we have been taking risks, experimenting with different players and new tactical systems because we cannot rely on one-dimensional strategy for the World Cup. If we do, the other teams will find us out. It won’t be enough to just rely on record goal scorer and captain Harry Kane to score all our goals.

Southgate believes the Hungary defeat is a timely reminder not to take things for granted. As the late Jimmy Greaves would say, football is a funny old game. Nothing is certain and the games are unpredictable.

It’s times like this when everyone thinks they know better than the manager, even if he took us to the brink of winning the European championships and a chance of our first major trophy since our victorious World Cup win in 1966.

How quickly the mood and times change, with some people now calling for Gareth to be sacked. Are you kidding me? He has brought back the pride back into the lions. Let’s get behind the team – Come On England.

Mickey Ambrose is a former Chelsea and Charlton player who lives in Stratford

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