Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

No, it's actually quite simple, England have had an easy draw in Euro 2024. End of discussion.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/article/2024/jun/28/england-easy-draw-euro-2024-history-southgate

Ita true that Southgate has been good at negotiating easy groups that past Eng managers could've fumbled. There has been no catastrophic knockout in three tournaments. Unprecedented for Eng since Venables took them through Euro '96, which is the only time I enjoyed Eng play in a tournament.

Even so, they have not had to face an in-form big team in the QFs, SFs in those tournaments and when they did (France in Qatar) they lost. The other loss being Italy in the final.

Reality is that Southgate is now most like his recent predecessors. Eng most certainly can lose to Slovakia and Southgate will be gone the min that happens.