I think its proven that at this moment in time he doesn't have the skills to be getting the best out of the players.
Its good to see that he's playing the youngsters, but sorry to say that he's tactically clueless.
I agree that McClaren, Capello and Hodgson failed tactically, but they had proven track records of success having done that elsewhere.
Southgate took Middlesborough backwards, England U21's did very little to progress them and somehow managed to get the England job.
No disputing that he's a nice guy, but his suitability to manage the national team will be exposed in Russia next year
I haven't even said he was a nice guy, it's not in my criteria for a manager. Whilst Southgate's tactics haven't given us much in the way of attractive football he got us into the World Cup, which was his remit. He's obviously not tactically clueless if he can keep clean sheets against two of the four sides most people will be tipping to make the final.
As you say, the other managers had decent track records and still failed so maybe track records have less bearing on international football than we think.
Right now, he's not really done any worse than Capello or Hodgson and better than McClaren but he hasn't been tested under real pressure yet. My gut feeling? He'll fuck up like the rest of them but even if we got to the quarter finals and lost on penalties people will stay say he fucked up and pick out a game where we struggle to break down some team that parks the bus as their justification, along with picking a couple of players they don't like (usually the one who does all the running about, screening etc).
I get a bit tired of people going on about tactics because they only usually make a tangible difference when two teams are evenly matched. When Man City beat a team like Huddersfield, it's not because Wagner had got his tactics wrong, it's because Man City have far better players. No amount of tactical genius can overcome that.
Apparently, listening to the radio earlier, Ireland lost because MON got his tactics wrong. No he didn't. At 1-1 they were going out so they had to go for it and just didn't have the quality to do so. They have no decent attacking players and as soon as they had to rely on their attacking players, they were fucked. They were a poor team who punched above their weight and ultimately got found out.