VICTIMISED
Gareth Southgate strode out of the Wembley tunnel in a suave waistcoat, shirt and tie combo, looking more like a prohibition mafia bookkeeper than the manager of England’s football team.
It was a fitting image after a week of weighing up decisions, balancing the accounts, trying to add two and two and continually coming up with five ahead of the penultimate friendly, against Nigeria, before the squad fly to Russia for the World Cup.
It was a week during which Southgate would’ve realised that his job is almost as much about his calculations off the field as it is about picking the starting XI and substitutes, putting the players through their training drills and deciding upon the tactics for the upcoming game. At times it must feel as though cooking the books for some mob bosses might be a less dangerous prospect than selecting England’s players to kick a ball around a field for 90 minutes, plus stoppages.
Southgate wanted to drop Raheem Sterling after he turned up late to join the rest of the squad. Having already been granted a later meeting date to sort out some personal issues, Sterling then missed
“England’s manager also wanted to extend an olive branch of support to the Manchester City forward for the week he had been through ”
a connecting flight at Miami Airport en route back from a holiday in Jamaica.
But England’s manager also wanted to extend an olive branch of support to the Manchester City forward for the