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Gareth Southgate backs misfiring Harry Kane saying he will start vs Czech Republic
Gareth Southgate has broken from his normal protocol by giving Harry Kane a huge vote of confidence and confirming England’s captain will start against Czech Republic 48 hours before the final group game at Wembley.
England manager Southgate usually likes to keep his team selections, even involving his senior players, close to his chest and has only occasionally confirmed one of his picks on the night before a game.
But Southgate has taken the unprecedented step of telling Kane he will play on Tuesday night and publicly confirming it on Sunday, 48 hours before the Czech Republic game, after the 27-year-old failed to score in either of England’s opening two games.
Asked by ITV if Kane will start against Czech Republic, Southgate said: “You can assume that yeah, absolutely, I don't mind giving you that one. He is our most important player, there is no doubt about that, you only have to look at his goalscoring record with us to see his importance to the team.
“He is fundamental not only for the goals he scores, but the build-up play and everything else he brings. I know there will be a lot of questions being asked about him at the moment, but he has been through that 100 times before.
“I have answered that in this role several times in the past and he has come up with the goals that have won us the next games, and I expect that to be the same moving forward.”
Kane was substituted against Croatia and Scotland, and has now only scored two goals in his last 11 England appearances, but Southgate insists the striker retains his full confidence.
“In one of the games, we were already ahead and we needed energy, we needed to press and keep the lead and didn't need additional goals,” said Southgate. “During the World Cup, we ended up with Harry playing a lot of football and we felt we needed to manage the load a bit this time and we have got good options on the bench to bring people into the game.”
Kane has also received the backing of his former Tottenham Hotspur team-mate Kieran Trippier, who insisted he should not just be judged purely on goals.
“With Harry, he works so hard for the team, people might not recognise what he does off the ball, the pressing,” said Trippier. “I believe in Harry and I know he will score goals, but it is the work he does for the team. Some people might not recognise what he does - the link-up play. Harry’s chances will come and, for sure, he will score goals.
“Harry's had an unbelievable season with Spurs. Harry is fit, he's working hard every single day in training and it's just about trying to get the chances to him. But he will score goals, Harry.
“He's working hard and we all know we need to create as much as we can in the games and for sure Harry will score goals. He's working so hard for the team off the ball and, like I said before, I think people are not really seeing that and noticing that. But Harry's a fantastic professional and for sure he'll start scoring goals.”
Asked whether or not Kane is undroppable, Trippier added: “That's not my decision, but he's our captain, he's our leader. Like I said, he's a big player for us and we just need to create chances for him to score goals.
“He's an unbelievable professional and we just need to try and get him on the end of chances and try and create as much for him as we can. Harry's a goalscorer, he's shown throughout the season his assists, his goals, so hopefully he can start scoring goals for us which I know he will.”
England will go through to the knockout stages as Group D winners if they beat Czech Republic, which could land them a last-16 tie at Wembley against France, Germany or Portugal.
Finishing second in the group with a draw on Tuesday night might give England an easier last-16 game against Sweden or Spain in Copenhagen, but Trippier said: “We want to finish first, we want to win every single game. We're in a good position, four points, and we want to go into every game to win.
“Tuesday will be no different, so we just need to focus on the training field and go into Tuesday with a winning mindset to get the three points.”
'Outside noise' cannot dampen England spirit, says Sterling
By Jason Burt
In the aftermath of England’s disappointing goalless draw with Scotland they retreated to Tottenham Hotspur’s training ground with Raheem Sterling revealing that Gareth Southgate decided to show the players a series of statistics.
They revealed that despite the “outside noise”, as Sterling put it, pillorying England’s performance after frustratingly dropping points in Group D, history has shown that it is not always teams who start tournaments with 100 per cent win records that go on to lift the trophy.
The most recent example is the reigning European champions, Portugal, who did not win any of their group games at Euro 2016 (three draws) with Southgate urging his squad “too look at all the positives” and fearing they might be affected by the adverse reaction in the wake of failing to beat Scotland which left them only second in their group before the final fixture against the leaders, the Czech Republic.
The presentation by Southgate was made at Spurs Lodge the superbly-appointed accommodation which is part of Tottenham’s facility off the M25 and where England stay before and after games to break up the routine of being at St George’s Park.
“Gareth showed us some stats on teams that have gone on to do well in the tournament and where they were after the first two games. It just shows that it’s still early days and we’ve got a lot to build on and I truly do believe we can do that,” Sterling explains.
“He always shows us best possible scenarios, worst possible scenarios. This was another scenario where we’ve got four points and it’s not the end of the world. He just tried to make us look at all the positives and it is positives because we could have gone into Croatia and lost that game because they are a top team. They have beaten us before.
“But we’ve gone into that, we’ve won that (1-0 with Sterling scoring the goal) and we’ve gone into the second game, didn’t win that but we thought we should win. And we’ve got four points. So he’s just showing us [how] in previous tournaments that it’s not every team that wins their first few games that goes onto win. Sometimes teams that have drawn their first two games have gone onto win so we’ve just got to stay motivated, be happy and enjoy our football. And nothing changes.”
Indeed World Cup winners France in 2018, Germany in 2014 and Spain in 2010 – who actually lost their first group game – all dropped points before going on to triumph and Southgate’s approach is part of what is known as a pre-mortem (as opposed to a post-mortem) because it looks at scenarios that might happen to build confidence.
The manager believes this is part of preparing his better players but also giving them a sense of reality around the febrile atmosphere that can build up around a tournament where every result understandably receives added scrutiny and reactions can become more extreme.
Nevertheless after Friday night England are under pressure – and rightly so – and Sterling says it would be a “plus” to get a good performance as well as the win in the “massive game” against the Czechs on Tuesday. Win and England will top their group and play at Wembley in the last-16.
Sterling, who has started both group games so far, admits England failed to show “personality” against Scotland and need to “take control” of matches more. “In a game like that, that is where we need to show our personality, show a bit more,” he says. “They came and threw things that we didn't deal with well enough and I think with the ball we could have shown a bit more personality and dominated the game more.”
Even so – and perhaps armed with Southgate’s statistics – Sterling argues that some of the criticism has been excessive. “I do feel there’s a bit of an over-reaction on the whole in terms of I don’t know if it’s …I just feel there’s more of a panic on the outside than inside the building,” he says.
“At the same time the players who have been at a few tournaments, who have huge experience, try to help the other ones. I don’t see anyone in the camp that feels any pressure or feels hard done by. As much as we can, inside the building, the best thing we can do is focus on the training field, focus on what’s being doing inside. We really shouldn’t be looking what the papers are saying, what pundits are saying. That’s something we need to take for the rest of this tournament, the more you listen to outside noise, the more it can affect you.
“If you’re not really looking into that the better it is for you as an individual and as a collective as well. We don’t really, I’m not saying on the outside it’s negativity, but we don’t want any negativity creeping in and performance levels dropping, and confidence level dropping, and that’s all that it will do.”
Despite the pressure being on Sterling appears a contented figure around the England camp where he is, in terms of caps, the most senior figure despite still being just 26 and has always been selected by Southgate for the big games. Intriguingly Sterling hinted at his frustration going into this tournament having not featured regularly for his club, Manchester City, in the second-half of the season with England team-mate Phil Foden and Riyad Mahrez preferred as the starting wide players.
The forward has two years left on his contract at City and will hold talks over his future after the Euros and in an interview before the Champions League Final he said he was “nowhere near the level I can be”.
On Sunday, Sterling was asked to explain what he meant.
“It is just happiness, just being happy, enjoying my football and that is what I am doing being here with the national team,” he says before adding: “If you’re not playing, you’re not happy. That’s me, that’s been me since a kid, if I’m playing football I am really happy, if I’m not I’m not happy.”
