The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
England have been able to reconnect with fans, insists boss Southgate
Young team have created excitement and started to reconnect with public, says Southgate ahead of last 16 clash
Gareth Southgate believes England have reconnected with fans that not so long ago were jeering his team and aiming paper planes at them.
Passion and excitement for the national team has waned in recent years, thanks in no small part to a group-stage exit at the last World Cup and the galling Euro 2016 defeat to Iceland.
Southgate was parachuted into the hot seat, having initially been reluctant to step into the Three Lions void, and has overseen an impressive change in fortunes since taking the reins.
England reached the World Cup and then the last 16 with a match to spare, with Colombia next up in Moscow this Tuesday.
“The players have been able to change perceptions of how an England team might play,” Southgate told BBC Sport. “We mustn’t lose sight of that.
“Ten months ago we qualified for the World Cup by beating Slovenia and people were throwing paper airplanes on to the pitch at Wembley.
“We were driving back to our hotel after beating Malta with some obscene chants being thrown at us from supporters.”
Southgate added: “I feel like we’ve started to connect the team with the public again.
“I feel like we’ve created excitement, like we’ve played in a style that has really shown an expression of what young English players are capable of, and I want us to continue doing that.”
England are looking to win a first knock-out match since 2006, building on the goodwill that increased with the Group G victories over Tunisia and Panama.
“I really believe in the group of players we have got,” Southgate said. “They are young. They are inexperienced.
“For some of them, this will be one of the biggest games they’ll have been involved in, but maybe not the biggest. We’ve always got to keep that in context for the players.”
Not being the biggest was a jibe Thibaut Courtois reportedly threw at fellow goalkeeper Jordan Pickford after Belgium’s back-ups beat England’s second string last week.
Southgate dismissed the Belgian’s offhand remark that he would have caught Adnan Januzaj’s winner as he is 10 centimetres taller, so too any criticism for a goalkeeper who is yet to keep a clean sheet in Russia.
“I’m really pleased with his performances,” the England boss told talkSPORT.
“I don’t think he’s had much chance with the goals that have gone in, that’s a goalkeeper’s lot at times.
“He knows the belief I have in him. He is an important fit for the way we play.
“He’s got to make sure he knows the views of those who are important and, like everybody else, cut himself away from the outside views that can start to inhibit your thinking.”
When Courtois’ comments were put to him, Southgate added: “I remember when we were talking about young goalkeepers at a conference once.
“Martin Thomas, who’s a brilliant coach educator now, was under-21 goalkeeping coach and was talking about the difference between a couple of goalkeepers.
“Size-wise, he said at the end of the day, you’re talking about a Cadbury’s Creme Egg between them.
“Of course some keepers are 6ft 6in, but they have attributes that they are not so good at. And you get slightly smaller ones who are athletically better and have different skill sets. “It’s rare to find perfection in anybody.” Meanwhile Sven-Goran Eriksson has backed England to beat Colombia and hopes they will play Sweden in the quarter-finals.
Eriksson twice led England to the World Cup last-eight stage during his reign as manager, and he has been impressed with Southgate’s squad so far in Russia.
But the Swede warned that his countrymen are a tougher team to score against than strongly-fancied Brazil.
“When you come down to the last-16, it is always difficult, and it should be difficult,” Eriksson told BBC 5 Radio live’s Sportsweek programme.
“I think England will beat Colombia, then I hope they will meet Sweden.
“I know that everyone wants to avoid Brazil, and maybe rightly, but I think it is easier to score against Brazil than against Sweden.
“Sweden are not playing the best football in the world, but to score against them is very difficult.”
England beat Tunisia and Panama in the group stage, before a 1-0 defeat against Belgium meant they secured a place in the knockout phase as a runner-up. Both Southgate and his Belgium counterpart Roberto Martinez made wholesale changes for that game.