Southgate left embarrassed as his show of faith backfires

A MANAGER embarrassed, a nation let down.

Just when the England coach thought he could begin to focus on coaching England to football glory again, he finds himself failed by one of his most trusted lieutenants.

Gareth Southgate clearly believed the version of events Harry Maguire, left, gave him over the phone after the two nights he spent in that Mykonos cell.

Ultimately, subject to appeal, it was the way Maguire had behaved in the face of the Greek authorities, not his apparent tormentors, which left the player with such a deep stain on his copybook.

There is little doubt that the Manchester United captain and his party had been savagely provoked by idiots jealous of a likeable young man’s hard-earned success. Those, sadly, are the perils of being a professional footballer in these distrustful, malevolent times. It was something Southgate planned to remind his charges of when they met up at St George’s Park for international duty on Monday.

No need to bother. Hopefully Maguire being handed a 21-month suspended sentence after being found guilty of repeated bodily harm, attempted bribery, violence against public employees and insult will hammer home the point.

Optimism had outweighed unease when Southgate included Maguire’s name in his published squad list and used his press conference to defend the character of his player, even as the summing-up process of his hearing was being concluded in Greece.

For so long the manager has been the moral compass for the country as a whole.

From the footballing doldrums in which he was first employed, Southgate taught the country to love its national team again and in turn embrace the youth and diversity around which it had been so meticulously constructed. But for once he got it wrong.

Despite the looming cloud of Maguire’s situation, his demeanour was subtly different at his first squad announcement for 10 months.

“Of course I can’t ignore off-field events and events that happen away from our camps but I also can’t just pick a team to win based on

the best-behaved XI,” he said. “It’s just not realistic.

“If you look at some of the greatest competitors in the world and winners in every sport, they’re not always easy to manage and they’re not perfect. None of us are.

“My job is to pick an England team to win. My job is to turn England from fourth in the world to No1.”

But England’s glass remains half empty. Right now, this feels more like square one for all of Southgate’s best efforts.