Southgate's position is in jeopardy.
The quarter-final against Slovakia is likely to be the last of his tenure for England in recent years. If he loses, there is a high probability that he will not be able to stay on even if he has six months left on his contract.
Even if England reaches the quarter-finals, the situation will not change, as long as they cannot continue to qualify, it will be a failure.
For this England team, this feeling of the end of an era is completely new. Only Harry Kane, Kyle Walker and John Stones played in Roy Hodgson's final game, which left a famous loss to Iceland.
In the match against Slovenia, England drew to the top of Group C and were booed all over the world. Most players have never "enjoyed" this treatment in an international match.
Over the past year or so, England's players have been unanimous in saying they enjoy working with Gareth Southgate and are keen to see him stay. If that's what they do, then they still have a chance to make it happen, or at least make it more likely, from the weekend onwards. However, judging by the performances of the England team over the past few weeks, the players seem to be a bit duplicitous.
But at the end of the day, the onus is on Southgate.
England showed a sense of calm in the first three tournaments, with the head coach calmly navigating the rough seas of the Gazball. Penalty shoot-outs and knockout matches against strong teams – moments that would have overwhelmed England in previous editions – Southgate managed to save the day.
Even if something goes wrong, Southgate always feels like he's planning his route in advance. The system and lineup of any tournament is always clear from the start.
Even though England changed their formation at the last European Championship, this is not a tear up of the tactical manual, but a new chapter in it. When they switched from 4-2-3-1 to 3-4-3 in the quarter-final against Germany, it was a long-time revamp in the making, and Southgate lamented at the 2018 World Cup that his team did not have a tactical B plan.
Of course, Southgate has also been criticised for sticking too rigged into a plan and failing to regain control when things change, such as the 2018 World Cup semi-final against Croatia or the European Championship final against Italy three years ago. Sometimes, small but historic details can go against him, such as Marcus Rashford's penalty shoot-out against Italy at Wembley and Donnarumma's misdirection, or Kane's 2-1 down penalty against France in the 2022 World Cup quarter-finals.
However, all this is a far cry from where England are now. Because in those games, England had their own plans and for better or worse, they stuck to it. But now, for the first time since Southgate took over from Sam Allardyce in the autumn of 2016, it's unclear what the plans are.
England have been so poor for much of the group stage of Euro 2024 that it's hard to have confidence in their future. The once tranquil and majestic Gazball now looks like a hole has been drilled into the waterline. If Southgate doesn't want to sink with it, he'll have to make urgent repairs to keep the voyage going. He had never been in this situation before.
It's not over yet: England defended remarkably, conceding just one goal in three group games and barely giving their opponents a chance. At least in theory, they have experienced players and a winning attacking talent. And they fell to the half of the zone where they thought of being easy to play. Despite all the problems, they are still the favourites for Spinach. Their path to the title seems narrower than it was 11 days ago when the European Championship opened, but there is still hope for them.
But what is worrying about England at the moment is that they face too many problems.
It's not a simple matter of personnel selection like the World Cup 18 months ago. (Raheem Sterling or Rashford?) Foden or Saka? The question now is: Kane is in the front or behind? Is Bellingham a number 10? Foden is it? Still playing on the left side? Who among the 26ers can provide the right balance in midfield?
We could go on and on. The problems that arose in the group stage were enough for us to continue thinking about for the next few years. But England will travel from their home town of Blankenhain to Gelsenkirchen in a few days' time, and Southgate won't have much time to get back to his original principles between now and then.
If Southgate is to avoid a wreck, what he needs is some short-term solution. It's easy to discard a "one-size-fits-all" solution, a plaster-like solution is easy to overlook, but it may be the only way to stop England from continuing to sink. Bobby Robson did this in the 1986 and 1990 World Cups, where England ended up falling on penalties and missing out on the final. There is no point in planning for the distant future, because now may be their last chance.
So, what would these fixes look like?
Mainou should have started because he was so comfortable coming off the bench on Tuesday and was one of the few England midfielders who could lead his team-mates.
There are reasons to give up Bellingham or Saka and even Kane and Rice. There's no player who can't move, Bukayo Saka may have to go back to the left wing, and since the start of Europe, you've never been in that position in the England team. Palmer and Gordon have to have at least one to inject confidence and intelligence into the team.
Given England's current situation, Southgate might as well be bold.
This is very different from the adjustments he made for the quarter-finals at the last European Championship and the World Cup in Qatar, where those two were specific tweaks to address specific issues. But now is no longer the time to fine-tune, these are emergency repairs to save the team.