MOURINHO DIDN’T BULLY ME SAYS GARETH

GARETH SOUTHGATE insists he wasn’t bullied by Jose Mourinho in the club v country row over Marcus Rashford.

The England coach has included 19-year-old Rashford in his squad for next month’s games with Scotland and France.

It means the Manchester United striker will not travel to Poland to take part in the summer’s European Under-21 Championship.

United boss Mourinho was desperate for the teenager to miss the tournament, claiming he was too good for that level of football and also wanted him to take an extended break.

Mourinho is believed to have spoken to Southgate to persuade him to leave Rashford out of the Three Lions’ Under-21 squad.

But Southgate insists Mourinho had no influence on the decision and that he makes choices that are best for the players – and not clubs like United.

The England boss said: “No, I didn’t speak to him about it. I let him know where I was heading with it at the end.

“I have not spoken to him about it, but I am not in a position where I can make decisions to keep people happy.

“I’m not going to achieve that. If I am trying to keep Jose happy then ® that’s going to be, let’s say, fairly difficult.

“So I have to make decisions that are right for England seniors in the long term.

“I’m always mindful of what is right for the players. Respectfully, none of the managers are going to be around in 10 years, or very, very unlikely, and people like Marcus Rashford will be.

Collision

“His relationship with England is key. So we want a good working relationship with the clubs, of course we do.

“But they have their objectives and have to make decisions that are right for them, and I have to make decisions that are right for England.

“So there’s always going to be some collision at some point on that and some disagreement, but I have to make decisions, not keep people happy.

“That’s the same with the players. I said that to them last time, I’m not here to keep people happy.

“In many respects it would have been easy, because I knew when I made the decision that it would be one of the things that would be fired across, ‘You have done it because of Jose’, and so on.

“In many respects it would have been easier just to pick Marcus and send him with the Under-21s and not have to face all of that.

“But I have to make a decision that is the right one. The number of matches is significant for him at his age and also not just run-of-the-mill matches, but big matches with high expectation on him.”

Rashford scored a hat-trick on his England Under-21 debut against Norway last September before going back into the senior squad.

Southgate added: “The key is not the relationship with Jose, it’s the relationship with Marcus and making sure that he senses that we’re not just plonking him somewhere to tick a box for us.

“We’re serious about development tournaments, but whenever we’re dealing with young players we’ve also got to be serious about their own personal development as well.

“Because he’s got huge potential we have to handle him in the right way to try and get him where we want him in the long term.”