Southgate looking to firm up his Russia plan

GARETH Southgate (right) will attempt to strike the balance between honing England’s tactics and firming up World Cup plans in the final match before naming his squad for Russia.

Just 90 minutes of international football remains before the Three Lions boss selects his travelling party, with Italy expected to prove a test sterner than their failure to qualify for this summer’s finals might suggest.

Southgate has already made his mind up on some players and shown his ruthless streak where necessary, with those bold calls helping the England manager to whittle his World Cup squad options to “probably 31, 32 players”.

Those selected for Friday’s 1-0 win i n Holland have already bolstered their hopes of being on the plane and now it is up for his tweaked side to do the same against the Azzurri at a sold-out Wembley tonight.

“There’s a lot of objectives really,” Southgate said. “The same as Friday. We want to build on the performance in Holland.

“We’ve only played the system a few times but this is a really good test because against the 4-3-3 Brazil, we didn’t play out of pressure so well.

“We’ve got to cope with that, got to have the confidence to play and to find the solutions to play through them. We’ve got to try to be more effective in the final third of the field.

“And also, we want to look at a couple of different players and a couple of different options, as we did on Friday. So, there’s lots of things you’re trying to get from the game.

“The week up to now has been a real success in terms of the attitude, the approach, the way we’ve trained.

“I think we’ve advanced a lot, the players are a lot clearer of the messages of how we want to play, and that showed in the game. That takes time but definitely I think we’ve made breakthroughs in that.”

Southgate’s choice of starting line-up and captain will be interesting at Wembley, with goalkeeper Jack Butland the only confirmed starter as the England manager looks to select his No 1.

Jordan Pickford performed well in his audition on Friday, showing confidence in possession as well as a sturdiness between the sticks that helped England’s ball-playing, three-man defence keep a fifth successive clean sheet.

“We’ve got to get the balance of those things. Your primary job is to get clean sheets,” Southgate added.

“If you speak to Kyle (Walker), John (Stones) or Harry (Maguire) after the other night, the biggest thrill for them was a clean sheet.

“Then, because they can all use the ball, that’s the additional bonus and that’s very much how we want to play. If we can keep the ball better, we’ve less defending to do.

“The fundamentals of defending will help us to be a good team.”