Southgate warns players no-one’s place is secure

Gareth Southgate has urged England's World Cup hopefuls to scrap for selection and warned no-one is guaranteed a place on the plane to Qatar.

Southgate made 10 changes from the weekend win over Switzerland as preparations for the winter tournament continued with Tuesday evening's 3-0 success over Ivory Coast at Wembley.

England will discover their group stage opponents tomorrow when the World Cup draw is made in Doha.

With the countdown to the competition firmly under way, Southgate expects growing competition to fuel the desire of those seeking to make his final squad.

"I'd be picking 18 (players to start) if I picked everybody they tell me should be in - I can't do that," said Southgate, who watched Ollie Watkins, Raheem Sterling and Tyrone Mings score against the Ivorians.

"They can all get on with it and fight it out amongst themselves and we'll pick the ones that are playing at the best level and who can do the job.

"We're in a fortunate position that we do have good players.

"You can motivate players as a manager, but there's no higher motivation than two more on the bench that can come and take your place.

"Without a doubt, none of the players in the squad can sit and think they're in the 23, 26 or in the 11. They've all got to keep playing well and keep pushing each other."

Southgate guided England to the World Cup semi-finals four years ago in Russia and then suffered an agonising penalty shoot-out defeat to Italy in the final of Euro 2020.

He acknowledges those recent near misses have raised expectations and says the prospect of taking the team one step further is "massively exciting".

"It's a different excitement because of course I'd never led my country to a major tournament and we weren't quitesurewhatweweregoing to get," said Southgate, comparing the 2018 tournament in Russia to the forthcoming one."it'sadifferentsortoffeel, but it's still a tournament that we all watched as kids, we all filled our wallcharts out, we all hoped and followed when England were there that we would do well.

"And it's a unique chance to make history, so that of course is massively exciting."