Just what might have been
and expected to be called up to the next England squad.
Southgate has made several bold decisions in his two years as England manager. He ended Wayne Rooney’s England career early, while goalkeeper Joe Hart was a surprise omission from the 23-man squad for Russia, opting for 24-yearold Everton goalkeeper Jordan Pickford, who was one of the tournament’s best players.
“Gary has a desire to still be involved,” Southgate said. “He’s a player we really respect. His contribution to what we’ve done, in terms of how he’s been with the group, his training and everything else, has been excellent.
“We just have to see how he starts the season. He also knows that generally speaking we are looking at some other players. He doesn’t want to finish and I don’t want him to finish either. So we’ve had a really productive and mature conversation about what happens next. And hopefully he has another brilliant season with his club.”
Southgate also admitted after defeat to Belgium that England would rather not have been involved in the third-place playoff, a fixture scrapped by Uefa for the European Championships in 1980.
“It’s a really difficult challenge for both teams to pick themselves up and go again,” Southgate said. “But [the match] was another really good learning experience for us. A high-level game against top opponents.
“Would we have rather gone home two days ago? I think, if I’m honest, yeah. We would all have said we’ve been away a long time.
“But we had to dig again and that was good for us. We had to find some resilience, we had to go down to an early goal and find resolve again. That won’t do us any harm and the level of the game was top.”