I agree with the criticisms against Southgate, but I don't like when people simultaneously praise Alf Ramsey and say "imagine him with this England squad".

You guys really don't know how Alf Ramsey was as England's coach. Yes, he won the World Cup, which made all the criticisms against his work be forgotten, but there were plenty.

Ramsey didn't care about any sort of beautiful football. England was a traditional 4-4-2 with emphasis on long balls and two big tall physical strikers with little technical skill (Hunt and Hurst) to fight for the ball in the box. He was infamously an autoritharian coach: you wouldn't dare cross his line, or he would get you out completely.

He also didn't care about actually making the best possible team with the best players England had. He had a fixed idea of football in his mind, and players either adapted to what he wanted, or would be kicked out. Most infamously, Ramsey didn't call Jimmy Greaves to the World Cup, despite all his skill and being the best striker in England in that moment!

All the Alexander-Arnold controversy is small potatoes compared to Ramsey willing to snob Greaves from the NT. Ramsey would rather have the two towers Hunt and Hurst.

I guess Ramsey was prophetic about how people would not remember the criticisms against him if he won the World Cup. In early 1966, England beat Germany 1-0, but England's performance was from eye-catching. He answered the criticism by saying something like "the same people criticizing us for this game will praise us if we beat Germany in the final by only goal".