Southgate’s got no untouchables
GARETH SOUTHGATE has warned England’s players – do not take your foot off the gas because no one’s place is safe.
As his team try to make it three Euro qualifying wins out of three today against Bulgaria at Wembley, manager Southgate has continued to tweak his squad by calling up Chelsea’s Mason Mount, Leicester’s James Maddison and Aston Villa’s Tyrone Mings.
Out this time round has gone Manchester City full-back Kyle Walker, right, a veteran with 48 caps.
Southgate said: “We need to keep ramping up the pressure. We know we won’t have as many high-pressure experiences in the next eight months or so, unless we start to make problems for ourselves with qualifying.
“So, we have to bring that intensity to every training session. We’ve decided we need to challenge everybody more and more, not accept any taking the foot off the gas.
“The players do understand that challenge, they want the challenge.
“I must not overreact to everything that happened that night against Holland,” he added, referring to the 3-1 loss in the Nations League semi-finals in the summer. “But we made too many errors in a big game.
“We know we will improve if our work’s right and if our mentality’s right. “You have to constantly improve, tweak different patterns, improve the detail.
“The players have their own motivation. But in the end, competition for places is a pretty good motivator.
“The younger guys now are after the older ones – the older ones are still proud and want to stay in, and that’s a really healthy situation.”