‘I’m still right man to lead England’

ENGLAND manager Gareth Southgate insists he is still the right man to lead the country into the World Cup after his side slipped to its third defeat in its last five games and he was jeered by thousands of travelling fans at the San Siro.

And England captain Harry Kane acknowledged the fears of the fans, with Qatar approaching, but urged them not to panic.

England’s 1-0 defeat on Friday night by a young Italy team, which did not even qualify for this winter’s tournament in Qatar, relegated England to the second tier of the Nations League and marked their third loss in five games without a victory, making it their worst run since 2014.

But Southgate remained defiant in the face of such a run and said: ‘I

think I’m the right person to take the team into the tournament. It’s more stable that way, without a doubt. I don’t think that the performance (against Italy) was far off and I know that will get derision just because we are on the back of a run of defeats.’

England have one last chance to repair morale when they face old foes Germany at Wembley tomorrow night and Southgate said: ‘The players know that, in the main, the performance [against Italy] was good. We’ve got to be decisive in the final third.

‘We’re not managing that at the moment and that’s a head-scratcher, given the quality of the players and the positions they got themselves into.’

Kane, who has scored England’s only goal in the five games of this Nations League campaign, said: ‘If we have a successful tournament I’m not sure people will be worried about the spell we had over the summer, that’s the bottom line.’