Monday 18 November 2019 12:00, UK
England's qualification campaign has been a roaring success on the pitch, but off it, Gareth Southgate has had plenty to contend with. Sky Sports News' Kaveh Solhekol looks back on an eventful year.
On the pitch, it has been plain sailing for Southgate; off the pitch, he has had to deal with the ugly spectre of racism at away games and the fallout from Raheem Sterling's canteen confrontation with Joe Gomez.
Even though they won 6-0, England's visit to Sofia for the game against Bulgaria last month was Southgate's biggest challenge of the year.
Make no mistake, it was an ugly and hostile atmosphere. So much so that Southgate's post-match press conference ended with a Bulgarian journalist telling him to "f*** off".
Bulgaria had been unhappy with how much Southgate had talked about racism in the build-up to the game and they felt he had almost been inviting trouble. To be fair to Southgate, whenever he is asked about racism, he always makes a point of stressing that it is a problem in the English game as well as abroad.
Southgate's leadership qualities were also tested last week when Sterling and Gomez were involved in a "disturbance" at St George's Park. It would have been easy for Southgate to try and keep it in-house and deal with it in private. That is not Southgate's way.
Transparency and honesty are some of the hallmarks of his management style. He immediately called a press conference and punished Sterling by dropping him for last Thursday's game against Montenegro. Many people thought he had overreacted but he emerged from a difficult week looking stronger - and with an aggregate scoreline of 11-0 in the games against Montenegro and Kosovo.
On the pitch, though, England's success has to be put into perspective. They have probably never been in an easier qualifying group and although they won seven of their eight games and scored 37 goals, the 2-1 defeat against the Czech Republic last month was a reminder that no-one should be getting carried away just yet.
What is undeniable is that progress has been made and Southgate's squad for Euro 2020 will be stronger and more balanced than the one he had in Russia in 2018.
England have also developed from playing three at the back at that World Cup to a 4-3-3 formation which makes the best use of the attacking talents of Harry Kane, Marcus Rashford and Sterling.
They will be Southgate's front three next summer and if the tournament was starting tomorrow he would almost certainly have Jordan Pickford in goal and Trent Alexander-Arnold, Harry Maguire, John Stones and Ben Chilwell as his back four.
That leaves midfield as the main area of concern. Southgate has used 12 different midfielders since the World Cup but at the moment you could make a strong case for his first choice being Jordan Henderson, Harry Winks and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.
England's opening game of Euro 2020 is still 210 days away and even though Southgate will have only four games before then to assess his options there is still time for players to break into the squad.
Since 2002, an average of seven players who were not involved in the last qualifying squad have made it into the tournament squad. That means there is hope yet for players such as Eric Dier, Dele Alli, Jesse Lingard, Jack Grealish and Phil Foden.
So there are still plenty of big calls for Southgate to make before next summer. In 2019 he got most of the big calls right and that is rare for an England manager in this day and age.
Southgate was asked last Tuesday whether his week had been more difficult than a normal week. "I don't have normal weeks," he replied. "I'm the England manager."
