Southgate’s hotshots target glory at ‘home’ tournament
ENGLAND head for the European Championship finals in the dizzying position of being the hottest shots on the continent. somewhere that teams fear coming – that’s part of the message I gave to the players.
“The players deserve it. They’ve played extremely well against opponents we should beat in a group we should win, but the quality of their play and the number of goals they’ve scored…
“I used to look at Germany in qualification and they were racking up sixes and sevens, and we used to be struggling to break down teams who played with a low block. “We’ve now managed to play in a way that’s been able to solve that problem. Now we’ve got to solve the different sorts of problems that come with the higher-ranked opponents.” There are some gleaming engines in Southgate’s train set – Sterling, Jadon Sancho and Marcus Rashford among them – but as Rod Stewart will testify a railway layout must have the tracks laid right. Southgate said: “In any team you can’t have 10 Raheems and Jadons and Rashfords without having the glue to piece that team together and without having the right people to win the ball back, and the leadership and the drive that teams need. Liverpool benefit from that with the likes of Jordan Henderson and James Milner.
“We’ve got people like Fabian Delph who brings that for us, Henderson too. You can’t just have a load of nice footballers.
“There’s got to be a grit to the team and that’s a part of the game we’ve still to improve upon when we’re playing the likes of France and Spain.
“The beautiful football we’ve played is one thing but we’ve got to get everything right.”
With that in mind, Harry Winks’ measured contribution in the rout of Montenegro pleased Southgate as much as Harry Kane’s hat-trick.
The use of Trent AlexanderArnold as a defensively-minded midfielder in the second half was also an insight into his possible future thinking.
“I wanted to see Trent in there. It’s something we’ve been talking about,” said Southgate. “It’s not easy to put a player in a position he’s not played regularly for his club because he’s not in the groove of doing it, but it was an experiment we definitely wanted.”
Thursday’s line-up was the youngest England team for 60 years, and Euro 2020 will be another test for the debunked theory that you cannot win with kids. “We’ve got to get the balance right with that but these, in most cases, are our best players,” said Southgate.