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The soccer publication is oddly uninspiring, yet curiously irresistible. Even title raises questions. Dear England currently is used by a successful theatrical production, an future TV show, and a public letter penned by the manager in 2021.

This iteration of Dear England is not officially connected to any of those. It represents an oddity in the Dear England Multiverse, a volume about leadership: a traditionally dry top-level coach trope that the author sticks to persistently, using the words “leadership”, “leading” or “leadership” at least 500 times across its 336-page length.

Inquiries Explored

“What are leaders? What actions do leaders take? What knowledge do leaders possess?” he asks early on, establishing his position, but declining to explore “How are leaders?”, topics likely set aside for a second book.

Otherwise, this book has a book-shaped hole in the middle. It’s an exercise in subtly confrontational personal vindication, in nearly but not entirely saying the actual thing, jumping nimbly from unresolved issue to fresh pain across a collection of pie charts, management jargon and references about historical figures.

Immersion

Reading it is like eavesdropping on your loved ones having a polite but deeply felt debate in the next room while you’re attempting to concentrate on a professional workshop titled “112 Reasons Why Naturally I Had the Last Laugh”. But it is also difficult to stop reading, as Southgate keeps coming close to an issue you truly wish to discover, before unexpectedly veering away.

Revelations

Readers will find inevitably news headlines in publications in this genre, such is the rapt obsession with England managerdom. The most striking ones include: he made up his mind he was certainly going to step down as England manager after spectators hurled containers at him at the Euros; he almost chose to forfeiting the game at the interval against the Bulgarian team in 2019 after his team were targeted with slurs; he introduced the approach of dedicated restart experts and all teams in the Premier League is now adopting his methods; he has now abandoned his love for the sport, a shocking confession briefly included in a short passage at the conclusion.

Managing England through a time of fury, optimism, political ferment and lockdown was a harsh experience. The scars are clearly still fresh.

Generic Content

In other sections, the text is saturated with an robotic verbal clutter of commonplace leadership chat. Review editions of this book were provided with journalists under confidentiality clauses ahead of launch, probably out of fear someone might leak that “tough talks can, by their inherent quality, be challenging”, that you should always look before you leap, that leadership occurs where evolution meets understanding.

Emotional Core

The book contains however real feeling here. Managing England through a period of anger, aspiration, turmoil and pandemic restrictions was a harsh journey. The wounds are evidently still raw, even if expressed in a buzzword-filled reinterpretation of the standard football manager story: demonstrating my accuracy about each issue from the start.

Notable Cases

Even book’s introductory section, disguised as thrilling accounts of the deciding game of the tournament, is entirely focused on how effective he in fact was at tactical substitutions (the major criticism of Southgate being he was not successful at substitutes). Subsequently, he delves into extensive analysis about how he oversaw the championship match of 2021 impeccably – particularly the losing spot-kick decider – because he complied with a established procedure, which implies that throwing on young players at the last moment to take the most important shot of their existence was sensible and accurate.

That approach was confirmed by a winning penalty decider against the Swiss team four years later after a match where England spent the full duration looking as if they were striving to wear a pullover the inside out. “Our commanding performance in that tiebreaker was truly exciting,” he writes, in between likening the performance to US Navy Seals eliminating a high-profile target. Oh Gareth.

Withheld Details

On the occasions we do get close to a disclosure, Southgate retreats from specifying people or providing the juice. We discover there were problematic England individuals who required more attention, possibly because they were pampered at the start of their careers. But as you anticipate hopefully, he is quickly veering off into a topic called a leadership concept, which states that rather than a grouping of characteristics or principles, organizational ethos is in fact something that is formed by, gah, stop, that’s sufficient.

Notable Sections

Included in the more compelling sections are when the author discusses about the incremental process of developing mental toughness in the next generation, or how he tried to describe national identity more lucidly and more positively than anyone else in the limelight. Best of all, there is a genuinely absorbing description of that traumatic match in the Bulgarian capital where England’s African heritage squad members were subjected to vile treatment (and subsequently defended robustly by their manager).

Sincere Finale

Perhaps the most sincere section {comes|arrives|appears