I got a few messages last weekend telling me in no uncertain terms that my criticism of Gareth Southgate indicated I didn’t know what I was doing.

How ironic then that Tuesday night’s embarrassing and shameful 4-0 home defeat to Hungary ended with the crowd chanting ‘you don’t know what you’re doing’ at the England manager.

My playing and coaching career may be limited to FIFA and Championship Manager respectively, but you don’t need to have been personally involved in the game to realise when a manager is out of his depth.

And I’m sad to say that is exactly what Gareth is. Drowningly so.

I understand, of course, that with four Nations League games in such a short period of time, Gareth had to mix and match the team a little. But no amount of mixing and matching should have conjured up an England team capable of suffering its worst home defeat since 1928. Especially to a relatively unspectacular Hungary team.

To put that in perspective, the last time England lost so heavily at home, a chap called Alexander Fleming was just discovering penicillin while Audrey Hepburn’s parents had just popped upstairs to do a little light actress procreation.

When I wrote last Sunday’s piece calling for a managerial change, it was in advance of the drab 0-0 draw with Italy and well ahead of the Hungary humiliation. And, as you may imagine, those games have done little to change my opinion.

Four games, two points, five goals conceded and only one goal scored. And that was a penalty. It really is a shameful spell of matches.

I know international and domestic football are different beasts, but that sort of run of form is roughly equivalent to a Premier League team going 14 or 15 games without a win, collecting just a handful of points and scoring only four goals along the way.

You certainly wouldn’t survive very long in the Premier League with that sort of record. 

The biggest problem right now is that England only have two more games to play before the World Cup kicks off – the return Nations League matches with Germany and Italy.

Reversing the damage done in those last four games in just another 180 minutes of football is going to require leadership that is strong, decisive and inciteful.

Not, I would suggest, three qualities which spring instantly to mind when someone mentions Gareth’s name.

It’s. Time. For. A. Change.

Hey big spenders

I have never made a secret of the fact that I suspect Europe’s mega-wealthy, country-owned football clubs are laughing in the face of financial fair play.

"For as long as I can remember Real Madrid have been blowing everyone else out of the water when it came to spending money on players. Nobody else could compete with their financial muscle"

The money spent by the likes of Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City, to my limited comprehension, just doesn’t add up unless there are some fishy sponsorship deals going on in the background.

But when I heard this week that La Liga was filing an official complaint to UEFA about PSG, to add to the one it has already made about City, I had to smirk a little. 

For as long as I can remember Real Madrid have been blowing everyone else out of the water when it came to spending money on players. Nobody else could compete with their financial muscle.

While the rest of Europe looked on in awe, Real smashed the transfer record time and time again – Louis Figo, Zinedine Zidane, Kaka, Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale.

Now, thanks to the likes of PSG and City, clubs like Barcelona and especially Real Madrid, are no longer the automatic destination of choice for the world’s finest players.

Quite why it is La Liga doing the complaining, rather than individual Spanish clubs, I am not entirely sure. Maybe the lack of new star names is having a detrimental effect on the marketability of their league.

Whatever the reason, to me this comes across as little more than the sourest of sour grapes.

As I said at the beginning, I am no fan of the concept of countries owning football clubs. No matter how honestly run they may be, there will always be suspicions surrounding them.But for La Liga to get all high and mighty about big spending football clubs is just a little bit pot and kettle…

Worth her weight in gold

There was absolutely no way I was going to let this column slip by without a special mention for Tenishia Thornton, the young Maltese weightlifting prodigy who is taking the sport by storm.

The 16-year-old won no less than three gold medals at this week’s World Youth Championships in Mexico and returned home with the title of World Youth Champion to add to her rapidly growing list of achievements.

I’m not going to pretend I know a huge amount about weightlifting – in fact I think that probably goes for a lot of people on our islands.

But I tell you what, thanks to the incredible efforts of Tenishia, I suspect that is going to change over the coming years because, let’s be honest, Malta has a very special talent on its hands.

Well done Tenishia and best of luck with the rest of your sporting career. You’ve already made your country proud and I’m sure you will keep on doing just that.

e-mail: james@quizando.com

Twitter: @maltablade