Be brave, Southgate tells Lions
FROM BACK PAGE “Our record against top teams in competitive games is non-existent, it’s not impressive, bar Argentina in 2002.
“It’s very rare since 1970 that we’ve beaten those top teams.”
England have not had a victory against a nation in the world top 20 in 10 attempts. But Southgate added: “We’ve come a long way from Wembley and fans throwing paper aeroplanes and us thinking, ‘Why are we here?’
“But we must not stop learning and improving and this will be a good test. “First and foremost how we can improve as a team in terms of possession, being braver in our positioning and our solutions with the ball, and how we press and be a bit more aggressive without the ball.
“We put bits of footage up, some stills, some stats around a couple of the games. That bit was more explaining why we were working on the training pitch the way we were.”
Southgate intends to send out a strong line-up, with Spain under new boss Luis Enrique likely to be a formidable challenge.