PLENTY TO PONDER!
SOUTHGATE LOOKING AT OPTIONS BEFORE NAMING HIS WORLD CUP SQUAD
Gareth Southgate 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 in 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 soldout 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.
“Also, we want to look at a couple of different players and a couple of different options, as we did on Friday.
“The week has been a real success - the attitude, the approach, how we’ve trained.
“I think we’ve advanced a lot, the players are a lot clearer of the messages of how we wanttoplay,andthatshowed in the game on Friday.
“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 number one.
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, you know?
“Your primary job is to get clean sheets,” Southgate said.