NO KANE, NO FEAR
Southgate happy to take on Switzerland without key players
ERIC DIER will take over from club-mate Harry Kane as captain, with England making wholesale changes tonight for their friendly against Switzerland.
Gareth Southgate confirmed that every outfield player who did not start Saturday’s 2-1 defeat to Spain, along with back-up goalkeeper Jack Butland, will do so at Leicester City’s King Power Stadium as he seeks to avoid overseeing the worst run of losses in England’s history.
So no Kane, no Dele Alli, no Jordan Pickford and, perhaps most significantly for an England manager in danger of becoming the first to lose four games on the bounce, no fear.
Even after being beaten for three matches on the spin, Southgate managed to deliver a performance yesterday that was hard not to admire.
He knows he is under a bit of pressure. Indeed, he suggested last night that the currency of the World Cup has already been spent after that challenging encounter with Spain.
But it will not stop him making wholesale changes to his side — nine in all — when he regards the development of his players as more important than his own record.
Such conviction deserves praise, particularly when he is probably the first England manager who is picking players because they actually need minutes on the pitch they cannot secure at their clubs; an extraordinary situation and a damning indictment of English football in 2018.
If Marcus Rashford and Danny Welbeck lead the England attack in the absence of Kane tonight, they will do so having played just 143 minutes of club football between them this season; with one goal and one start.
Southgate nodded in agreement when it was put to him that it was mildly ridiculous that international football has now become the best chance for some of his players to get game-time.
‘In all fairness, if I was (Wales manager) Ryan Giggs or (Northern Ireland manager) Michael O’Neill, I’d be saying: “What the hell is he complaining about?”’ said Southgate. ‘They have to select their players from different sources. But we’re in a different era in terms of numbers of players who are in the pool and are selectable.’
Despite three successive defeats, Southgate pointed out that other English teams that lost three on the bounce had not contested a World Cup semi-final and a third-place play-off.
‘That focus will come on me and I’m not concerned about it, otherwise I would make decisions to boost my own win record,’ he said. ‘In the build-up to last summer, we played Brazil, Germany, France and Spain. If it was about my win record, I probably wouldn’t have made those decisions, either.
‘The decisions are made to try to develop the team and I will put young players in, like we did at the weekend with Joe Gomez. I put Marcus back in. I put Luke Shaw back in.
‘It’s more important to me that we invest in the team and give these guys the experiences they need to get better.
I will have to live with whatever people want to say about my record. But I’m comfortable in my own skin. The priority is not me, it’s developing the England team.’
Asked how long he felt he could ride the World Cup wave of optimism, Southgate replied: ‘I’m under no illusions that it won’t last very long at all, frankly, if it has beyond Saturday.
‘But, again, I can’t let that affect my thinking. I’ve got to make decisions that I think are the right ones and not manage in fear.’