The time is right for Gareth Southgate to walk away as England manager

Football is cruel, but Gareth Southgate already knew that better than anyone. Harry Kane blazing over the bar in the shimmering heat of the desert is not how anyone wanted this to end. The World Cup a mirage, as it has always been.

It didn't seem even remotely possible that England's fate would come down to a penalty with six minutes remaining, trailing 2-1 to the world champions, awarded for the kind of software malfunction from Theo Hernandez that we so rarely see from Didier Deschamps' otherwise mechanical France side.

It was a complete gift. Then again, it wasn't, no less than England had deserved given the sustained pressure they had applied throughout the game, even if it was regularly diffused by the poor officiating of Wilton Sampaio.

French quality told. Aurelien Tchouameni and an impossible low drive to snatch the breath away like cold air, Antoine Griezmann with a scarcely believable heat-seeking cross onto Olivier Giroud's forehead.

Both goals were punches to the gut, bolts from Les Bleus, but not enough to completely knock the stuffing out of an England team valiant in the face of the proverbial big moments shunning them at the door.

Each time they were told 'not tonight, lads', each time they fought back through the queue with a swapped jumper and a reinvigorated sense of self, of longing, of belonging on that pulsating, spot-lit stage.

That England didn't take the game into extra time is down to their all-time joint leading scorer and an 84 per cent career penalty taker missing from 12 yards.

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Richard Keys, a man who operates exclusively in hindsight, thinks somebody else should have taken it. Presumably himself, given the comments made after Japan's penalty defeat to Croatia.

"I’d walk from the halfway line with my chest out letting the keeper know I was about to get a free shot from 12 yards. I wouldn’t be nervous, I’d be looking forward to it," he told Andy Gray, Ruud Gullit and Gary Neville, with all the self-awareness of a newborn baby without object permanence.

For Kane taking the penalty and for Kane missing, Southgate is not to blame. There can be no reasonable criticism of his starting line-up and initial tactical approach, both of which were justified and appeared to nullify France right up until the instant they didn't.

Kylian Mbappe - the best player at this World Cup - was a non-factor. England had more possession, more accurate passes, more shots on target, more corners, and accumulated 2.41 xG to their opponent's measly 1.01.

That 1.58 of that figure came from the penalty spot shouldn't matter. Tchouameni's opener, for instance, was a shot worth 0.03 xG; about as likely as Keysy saying something genuinely self-deprecating, but not impossible.

England's defeat leaves Southgate's future in doubt. After losses to Croatia in the semi-finals of the same competition four years ago and to Italy in the Euro final last year, he had matched an elite international team in the knockout stages of a major tournament. It still wasn't enough.

This has been the stick with which to beat him: England have faced significantly weaker opposition throughout their runs at these tournaments and have been nothing other than a flat-track bully. That Southgate could only hand over his lunch money and apologise when asked to pick on someone his own size.

Against France, finally, he did. Only the double-substitution of Mason Mount and Raheem Sterling instead of Marcus Rashford and Jack Grealish leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. That decision aside, it's hard to imagine what more Southgate could have done to force his way into the semi-finals.

And now he might walk away from it all.

Whatever happens now, Gareth Southgate's legacy as England manager is a brilliant one. A sea change from the WAGs and the washouts to the likely lads and the knockouts.

This is the first England team in a lifetime that matches its talent with selflessness and camaraderie, that is without ego and in-fighting, that is packed to the brim full of players who wear the shirt not to inflate their own sense of pride, but to make others proud.

Nothing gold can stay. If there is a time to leave, it is now, on his own terms. Not in disgrace in two years should England fall short again. Quite some distance has been travelled. For that Southgate deserves to leave his role as England manager with his head high. After Sven-Goran Eriksson, Steve McClaren, Fabio Capello, and Roy Hodgson he has done far better than anyone even had the capacity to hope.

Let's not forget that he was not the FA's first choice, far from it, initially roped in to calm everything and everyone down following the Sam Allardyce debacle. Yet there he stands, arguably England's greatest manager since Alf Ramsey. It does not now deserve to turn sour.

The players will want him to stay on until Euro 2024. After six years, however, something else is needed. Something more. There are other managers out there better suited to the talent pool England now possesses. The rebuild is complete, the platform is set. Now it is time to actually win something.

Southgate came close. About as close as you can get. But England were feeble against Italy at Wembley last summer. That there were braver now and fell even shorter tells you everything you need to know about knockout international football.

It is about taking your chances and, whichever way you look at it, Southgate has now had his across three tournaments.

A genuinely world-class midfield of Jude Bellingham, Declan Rice, Bukayo Saka and Phil Foden for the next decade is not something to be squandered. Nor are Kane's next two tournaments, likely his last at the peak of his powers.

A fresh approach is needed, a new set of ideas. Players such as Harry Maguire, Kyle Walker, Kieran Trippier, Jordan Henderson and Raheem Sterling have all performed admirably for their country over the past four years but their shelf-life is quickly diminishing.

Southgate, who is loyal to his players to a fault, is not the man to oversee this transition. No drastic overhaul is required but enough bravery to look at the furniture in a new light and make the necessary adjustments, the tweaks that take a very good team to the next level, to a group capable of ushering football home for good.

A £100m Pep Guardiola signing coming on only as a 98th-minute substitute proves the resources are there. Trent Alexander-Arnold, whatever you think of his defending, is not a player who should only appear for only 35 minutes at a World Cup. There are other countries doing far more with less. Southgate has done his part. Any future success England have will be partly down to him and his revitalisation of the national team.

He will have the rest of his life to wonder what might have been, to reflect on whether the dream was real. This is nothing new for him. England have only two years until they do this all over again.

It would be no tragedy if Southgate sees out the remainder of his contract until 2024 but now, still warm in the afterglow of public feeling that has grown since that initial, soul-crushing disappointment on Saturday night, he should bring this remarkable journey to an end with the dignity both he and the players deserve.

The vision brought to life fades, the World Cup a mirage as it ever was. Time to look, to find it elsewhere.