Gareth Southgate may not be everyone's cup of tea, but English football wouldn't be where it is today without him.
Whatever you make of his tactics, squad selections, alleged "wokery" and whatever other criticism gets hurled his way, there's no denying that the 52-year-old has taken England 's senior team further than they've gone for generations. Having given himself a week to ponder his future following his side's World Cup exit, coming after a narrow 2-1 defeat to eventual runners-up France in the quarter-finals, Southgate delighted his bosses at the Football Association by deciding to see out his contract and once again go in search of glory.
Over six years of undeniable progress on and off the pitch, it's the Three Lions player-turned-manager who takes much of the acclaim for milestones such as reaching a semi-final, final and quarter-final in successive major tournaments. But like any boss, Southgate has been helped immensely by his colleagues - in particular two men who've already waved goodbye to St George's Park and are now in high-profile Premier League roles.
As former England under-20s manager Paul Simpson explains in conversation with Mirror Football during the fallout of the Three Lions' gut-wrenching World Cup exit, ex-FA chiefs Dan Ashworth and Matt Crocker - now directors at Newcastle and Southampton respectively - also played a pivotal role in reshaping English football.
"Along with Gareth, Dan Ashworth and Matt Crocker were catalysts for the whole change of mentality at the FA," affirmed Simpson, now back as manager of home-city club Carlisle United in League Two. "With the work they did, they brought about a lot of changes and with Gareth going up with the seniors, he's created an environment where they all enjoy going.
"We've got away from a few years ago where it seemed players didn't want to play for the national team. I wasn't there for it but they talk about little cliques and a bad feeling between the groups and stuff like that, that was not something I ever saw in my time.
"All of the senior players, whenever we were on a camp at St George's and they were there, they were very respectful and always interested in what the development teams were doing. I just think the work that Gareth's done with the seniors, they have created a different environment."
Few know more about that work than Simpson, who five years ago became the first Englishman to win a World Cup since 1966, as he triumphed in the under-20 edition. A mere 12 months on from the senior side's infamous loss to Iceland in the summer of 2016, Simpson and his group of fledglings - including future internationals Dean Henderson and Dominic Calvert-Lewin - spectacularly announced that England were no longer going to be a joke on the world stage, and not just through better performances.
"When we went over to South Korea, one of the things I actually said to the group was that we didn't have a particularly good reputation in the eyes of the rest of the world as footballers," Simpson, who joined the FA setup in 2016 and spent four years helping advance the national cause, went on to explain.
"I wanted them to do everything they could to change that perception. By the end of it, FIFA, the South Korean public and the staff who were working at the hotels had massive respect for the players, just because of the way they behaved and how they went about their business. That, for me, was as big as winning the tournament."
Sadly for Southgate, he's yet to achieve both feats like Simpson managed to marry up in 2017. The Three Lions' quarter-final failure in Qatar prompted calls for his sacking, despite Euro 2024 only being 18 months away. But there was also a wave of support for him to stay on and finish the job by claiming silverware in Germany, a wave which Simpson was staunchly on board with.
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"I hope when the dust settles he actually realises where he's taken the England team and how good he has been," the Carlisle boss, who was in contact with Southgate during the World Cup, added. "It's odd, I read some things - people who're involved in football and managers who're involved in football - saying that he should go because he's never won a tournament.
"These people haven't got a clue what they're talking about I'm afraid, they've never been involved in it and they don't know the challenges that are involved in international football. For me, they should just concentrate on their own job and stop spouting off about other people."
Victory in 2024 would do plenty to shut them up.
