I’ll come clean, ever since Gareth Southgate walked out on Crystal Palace in 1993, a club that had nurtured him and whom I watched every home game back then, I have always disliked him. Intensely.

 I went off international football a long time ago and the addition of Southgate added to that despondency. A love for non league, the greed in modern football and the general bollocks that surrounds it saw me off. I tuned in to the game on Monday, something I have not done for years, unpatriotically hoping to see Southgate humiliated and because Loftus Cheek may get a game.

Tunisia are a dirty, nasty disgrace to football and a mixture of seeing a good England attack for the first time since god knows when and  a sense of fair play saw me ending up rooting for England.

I couldn’t believe somebody with the woeful  managerial record of Southgate could get the England job and since in place he has merely seemed to psychologically prepare the country for disappointment. It has all looked like a manager without much of a clue blagging a long term career as England manager.

It was with delight I began to realise players were being picked on merit and not reputation, out went a whining Hart and Wilshere with fresh blood coming in. To me for decades our shortcoming has been the team effectively picking itself based on wages and popularity rather than team being built to win a tournament. We looked like a team with a purpose and not bunch of overpaid stars with a misguided sense of entitlement.

So I deduce on our day we can probably score more goals than any other team as we look great going forward. Sadly we look like we could concede more than anyone else. Maybe with the midfield holding back for defensive duty a bit more against tougher opposition and a better balance we can remedy that. But then maybe we will be muted as an attacking force. Either way I wouldn’t be surprised to see us reach the last eight and that would prove Southgate to be a competent international manager and prove me wrong.

In effect he has been unemployable based on his work at Middlesbrough, but maybe all those years observing from the side lines and working with the younger England players has been the sort of preparation necessary to take on the England job rather than a track record of success in the top flight.

So is it time for a reappraisal of Southgate ? Early days still but the signs are encouraging. I am looking forward to the Belgium game to test ourselves against a better opposition, but the fact I am looking forward to an England game for the first time in over a decade means a lot because as much as I don’t like him he has reinvigorated my interest in the England team. He has us looking sharp, attractive, adventurous and willing something missing since I was a young man. Of course that is meaningless without success, but just maybe we are seeing the beginning of a new dawn. Or we’ll lose the next two games and he’ll get sacked. But he’d have shown dispensing with the old guard and getting a bit more back to basics is a sensible route for his replacement to pursue.