Young guns buy into Southgate’s vision but Rooney misses message

REPORTS at those goals and making sure that what we do now stands us in good stead for when we reach major tournaments. “In every department – the medical side, the technical and tactical sides, the operations and the way we organise things – we all want to be the best and make sure we give ourselves a chance to succeed. “It is a speech that the Under-21s have received before [when Southgate was their manager], highlighting the highs and lows of a career and the ambitions that he sees for us.”

Perhaps the players were not listening as well last time – Southgate’s kids finished bottom of their group at the 2015 European Championship despite being one of the top two seeds.

That might explain why a more established player like Jamie Vardy was a little bit more circumspect.

“I don’t think there is any reason to be shy of saying it,” he said. “But you also need to be putting in the performances on the pitch if you are going to say it. You can’t be saying it and then not performing on the pitch.

“So we’ll look forward to the Germany game and try to get a win and hopefully it will put us in good stead to move on to the Lithuania game.

“If we’re at 100 per cent and all on top of our game we can give any team in the world a game and we know we can beat them on the day so there’s no harm thinking it can be done.” Even Southgate admitted there will be lows as well as highs and he did not shy away from showing footage of his own penalty miss against Germany in the Euro 96 semi-final shoot-out as part of the presentation to the squad.

“The penalty was on there,” said Vardy. “He didn’t go into much detail but he wanted it to be on there to show how far he has come as well.

“Obviously, his being in that situation, to have his knowledge of that, can benefit us quite a lot.

“There were highlights and clips from the past as well and when things have not gone right, and he talked about how we can use them to help us keep progressing.

“We were looking forward to the World Cup and beyond and what basically we want to achieve as a squad together.”

That brings things back to Vardy’s initial point – it will be the talking on the pitch that ultimately matters.

And even a win against Germany in their own backyard does not necessarily point to a brighter future ahead – after all, Roy Hodgson’s side did precisely that three months before the debacle of the European Championship last year.

And what hope has Rooney got of making it down that long and winding road if the A523 proved too much of an obstacle?