If he wins a trophy then he's up there at the very top, alongside Sir Alf. It is what it is - regardless of opinions on his style of football or tactical nous, if you win a trophy then you've achieved the highest possible accolade and have to be recognised accordingly. I think when judging other managers against him it does make sense to include context of tournament structures pre-1996, and the teams we got knocked out by post-1996, but for some people it is genuinely as simple as the round we got to. Everyone will view it differently I suppose. Either way I'll accept Southgate as one of the great England managers if we win on Sunday - acknowledging that all great managers have their fair share of luck. It's weaved into all footballing stories and is part of what makes them so compelling.

Think I saw on the BBC that Kane is joint top scorer with 3 goals and could get the golden boot if he gets a goal on Sunday. Probably says more about the tournament than Kane, but still, would be pretty funny if Kane walked away with the golden boot despite everything.

Just has that feeling where it might be our tournament. Everything seems to be going our way, no matter how grim the situation appears.

Won't happen, but then, would you change a winning formula at this point? We've got to the final with Kane starting, regardless of perception of his performances. Probably have to keep rolling with it at this point.

Southgate made two brave subs towards the end and was rewarded for it. Fair play. Another final. Spain will be a huge test, but a final is a one off and anything can happen.

Please just keep this tempo going. We can and should win this. The Dutch got a slice of fortune with Rice losing concentration and were ruthless in taking advantage of that, but they've offered little else and looked rattled throughout by our attacking play.

Funny that the var woman got it totally wrong this time. Not sure what she meant by "the recommendation will be not to give a penalty" when surely var was the reason the ref second checked in the first place? The ref hadn't given a penalty initially after all. Easily the best we've looked so far at this tournament. Actually enjoying it for once!

Great goal, but a big lapse in concentration.

A lot of people seem to be emotionally attached to Southgate, most likely because he's a former England international and comes across as a nice bloke. Fair enough. I wouldn't encourage any personal abuse of him as that's totally uncalled for. The insistence that he can't be criticised for anything, though, is more difficult to understand. Might as well shut down the forum and all discussion places if it's a case of "we're in the semi finals and there's nothing else to say". Baseless criticism, sure, fair enough to dismiss. When criticism with genuine context and reasoning is dismissed in the same fashion, though, then what's the point? Much like with Mowbray, I have no problem with Southgate as a person. As a manager, I have some major qualms. I don't think it's unreasonable to postulate that with a slightly braver manager we might have actually won something in the past six years, rather than the usual glorious failure from the pre-2008 period. If we win this tournament then I'll hold my hands up and say okay, he did it his way and won a trophy. I might not have enjoyed it, but mission objective achieved.

Spain are so much better than us that they're practically playing a different sport entirely. Watching them play in this tournament has been a genuine pleasure.

But once you're in the tournament you aren't facing the likes of Slovenia, Slovakia, etc, so that makes it more difficult to get out of the group or progress to the semis. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the only genuinely top team we've beaten in tournaments during Southgate's tenure is Germany? They were in a massive dip at that point, but still, I'll give it to him. Nonetheless, what evidence is there, based on our performances against the top international sides during Southgate's tenure, that we would have done better in tournaments comprised primarily of the top teams?

I'd disagree, as pre-88 it was far more difficult to progress due to the number of teams in tournaments being far less and therefore of greater concentrated quality. The Euros only had 8 teams competing until 1996, and the WC only expanded to 24 teams in 1982, nowadays it's 32 and will be 48 in two years. Gareth has a good record compared to most of his predecessors from comparable years (1996 onwards, really). That is a fair point, albeit in many of those prior years we ended up going out, at whatever stage, to a top team - and that pattern hasn't changed. We've just been meeting those teams far later in the tournament.

Why does expecting more than one shot on target a game equate to wanting England to be 1970s Brazil? A bizarre extreme to take it to when most people I imagine would be happy with the game just being somewhat entertaining to watch, rather than a dreadful slog.

He lacks what's needed to be a good club manager, particularly when it comes to in game management and tactical knowledge. However, his ability to quickly create a unified environment and avoid significant controversy makes him a good fit as an international manager. His weaknesses are often masked by him having a wealth of top level talent available to pull out moments of magic - see Bellingham against Slovakia and Saka against Switzerland. You don't have that at many clubs except the very best, and at those you need more than just good man management to really succeed. These clubs want trophies, and don't see second place or semi finals as "success". They also wouldn't accept being beaten almost every time they come up against a club of similar stature.

I don't get how it's become an argument. Obviously we've been fortunate in this tournament in numerous ways. We had statistically one of the worst Euros groups ever and winning that group (with only one victory and two goals) means we avoided pretty much all of the big boys. We have enough of the propaganda from Rovers, do we need it for England as well? It's okay to say we've been lucky so far. It's not a knock on Southgate or the team. Luck plays a massive part in sports as not everything can be calculated to specific outcomes. What will matter is if we can take advantage of that to win the tournament. So far, by hook or by crook, we have done. Now our first genuine test arrives on Wednesday - let's see what we can do.

Germany, Spain and Portugal all won their groups and ended up on the difficult side of the draw, though. Indeed, so much so that Spain and Germany played each other in the quarters. Surely you have to accept there's some luck there in how the seedings worked out.

If somebody wants to say with a straight face that they enjoyed tonight's match across the entire 120 minutes then fine, but people are also allowed to say they didn't like it and found it boring. Across the first and second half I believe we had a single shot on target. If that's entertaining to you then that's great, but it probably isn't to a lot of people, even if that sole shot on target went in.

Glad we'll be playing a half decent team in the semis. It's not an all time Dutch squad by any stretch, but they'll give us a very different test and we will definitely need to raise our game to get past them. I don't think they'll let us zombify the game in the same way all of our previous opponents have. In fairness, I think Turkey would have given us a challenge as well. I think they'll go home proud, they've far exceeded expectations and been a lot of fun to watch. If we do get to the final, I'd want us to have beaten at least one genuinely good team on the way there. For confidence and momentum if nothing else. The Dutch would be a decent scalp and you have to think it'd give the players, the manager and the fans a big boost if we did get past them.

Our five pens were a masterclass. Technique and they all held their nerve. Never thought I'd see that from a set of English penalty takers.

Serbia, Denmark, Slovenia, Slovakia, Switzerland, Turkey... some route to a Euros final if Turkey win tonight and we scrape past them in the semis.

The team once again looked a lot better after subs. For what it's worth I do appreciate that dropping Kane would be very difficult as he's a dressing room leader, vastly experienced and historically a difference maker. He's just not been in this tournament though. A couple of poacher goals but for huge swathes of the game playing with Kane is like playing with ten.

As I've mentioned previously, you can't really compare pre-92 because of the expansion of lesser teams into the tournaments. Post-92 we've often met top teams before the semis. Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Portugal x2. WC 2014 we had Italy and Uruguay in our group. So yeah, context gives a different perspective. Can't argue with the facts, but, there's no doubt we've enjoyed good fortune with our seedings under Southgate. And still haven't actually won anything.

Fantastic penalties tbh. Made it look easy. No sympathy for the Swiss. We were there for the taking and they didn't bring it. They can't complain about going out. They'll never have a better chance to get to a semi final, but they just can't move past being a tournament filler team. We stumble on. Portugal 2016 vibes.

Might be the first England penalty shoot out where I have zero nerves. If we go through then fine, if we don't then never mind. We won't be missed.

Assuming it ends like this, I hope the Swiss pens mirror their shooting attempts today. Like they think they're playing rugby.