As for the game.....
I guess I am preaching to no one here, but this was pretty much a replay of the tactical failure that Southgate made v Croatia. Early goal, team goes totally passive in defence, slowly get dominated as the game goes on. In Southgate's mind defence in football is a mere number of bodies behind the ball, put 8 men behind the ball and you nullify an opponent.
What actually happened? Mancini threw on Berardi early. Knowing Southgate had gotten his back five to dig a trench and move from it on pain of death, Berardi simply dropped into the false 9 role and had free reign of space in front of the static back line. Emerson, totally outclassed for 30 minutes when asked to defend, suddenly started trooping down his flank, comfortable in the fact Trippier was no longer asking him or his midfield cover to do any defending, and allowing both to gang up on Trippier and create a mismatch.
Italy swamped us. Defending is not numbers, its concentration. What does it matter if you have 7 men in a line from touchline to touchline, if you allow the opponent to play all they want in front of you, they just hit a target on that line with a couple of runners overloading or creating a mismatch, and if you never challenge the space they leave behind them, they will keep doing it and doing it. And thats what happened. Italy turned situations of 5 attackers v 7 defenders into isolated 4 v 2 battles up and down the line, and the spare two men sat in the middle of the park and created mismatches when England then tried to work the ball forward. England's two DMs, in the first 30 minutes able to press close enough to make an impact, were too deep to challenge with the pressing as the game went on. They had to suck back to nullify the space inbetween the banks, and pretty much gave the Italian CMs all the space they wanted.
Between 30th and 70th minute, when Italy scored, Italy had 74% of the ball. That is frankly unacceptable and the kind of stat you expect when Man City play a Non-league team in a cup match. Pickford hit 28 long passes in that period, hardly any went to an England player. We continually lost the ball because the only outlet was swamped and outnumbered. The few times England players beat their men, they just got hacked down, as any team does now in defence. We simply offered zero threat with the ball, and hardly touched it. By the time Italy scored I was begging for extra time. We looked like a badly shaken boxer trying desperately to avoid the knock out blow.
His changes in the match were also idiotic. Which manager with 5 subs at their disposal waits for 100 minutes in a the second extra time in a week to bring on his 3rd sub? Ok, if we were bossing it and everyone was great, fine. But by this stage had hung on for 70 minutes and badly needed to change shape, and a few players looked totally gassed. Rice was having a good game, Phillips was being totally outclassed - brings off Rice. Mount did nothing all game, waits 100 minutes to change him with masses of options on the bench. Sets up with a ridiculous defensive system, yet England's best defensive right back is left on the bench (who just won a CLs final with a display of defensive masterpiece play) when he swapped him for a wide forward, who then isnt given any licence to attack and asked to defend only.
The starting line up to displays his inability tactically - you dont pick a right wing back noted for his quality of delivery and not his defending, and then ask him to defend most of the game despite dominating his opposite number for the first 10. You dont pick a right back at centre back when you have proper centre backs in stock - this one is a common thing to do in football, but only when you play high back lines and expect to attack a lot, the full back extra speed allows him to almost play as the liberio, but his extra pace allows him to get back and cover balls a normal centre back cant - in Southgate land, he just picked a right back to cover a striker man for man and put him deep dealing with the in the box stuff.
At this point I just feel a little pity for him - like he watched enough football to see people doing it, but not really knowing why. When he did it against other teams, it worked because we attacked and controlled the ball. Well, until Mueller exploited it and should have scored v Germany because Walker couldnt help but be dragged out of position towards his natural one. So actually, it didnt work - not really.
I guess the cherry on top was bringing on two people just because he had already composed a list of penalty takers, and both missing. A list not based on anything other than his own opinion watching training. Meanwhile he has a wondrful in the box finisher like Grealish, who apparently asked to take one, being told no.
All in all, his tactics were rubbish. We were lucky to make it to penalties. He froze all match whil Mancini seen the s*** hitting the fan and reacted. But I guess for most England fans not winning seems acceptable. We will triumphantly claim another near miss and Southgate will be hailed as a reason for our success- when in reality, we lost twice to inferior teams solely on the fact he doesnt understand the most basic of footballing systems.