Southgate wants a decision

GARETH SOUTHGATE wants a decision from the Football Association within the next two weeks about whether he will be England’s next manager, with today’s match against Spain at Wembley providing the chance to make himself a dead-cert to be the 15th permanent holder of the post.

The 46-year-old said after the emphatic 3-0 win over Scotland on Friday night that he welcomed competition for the position, though the governing body are already understood to be strongly minded that he should now get a three and a half year deal, with a break clause after the 2018 World Cup.

Asked if it was important for the situation to be resolved now, thus allowing him to plan, Southgate said: “I think (we need that) for everybody because we’ve got the European U-21 Championships to prepare for and the seniors have got the next round of games to prepare for.

“Everybody is going to want to know by the end of November, middle of December where everything’s heading so that we can decide who is responsible for which parts of the organisation’s work. Whichever body of work that is remains to be seen.”

He joked: “It would be important for me to know what I’m doing after the middle of November!”

Southgate felt that there was some courage in the way he asked the players to play out from the back against Gordon Strachan’s side and take “more risk” – despite the significance of a win to his hopes of being made permanent manager.

“It would be easy to say: ‘Scotland is a pivotal game in what we are trying to do so we won’t take any risks playing from the back. We won’t encourage the team to play, play percentage football and with better players we win the game,’” he observed.

“Well, we didn’t want to do that, we wanted to play in a style which we believed was right in the long term, a style that would encourage our younger players. There is more risk in that.” – The Independent