Gareth Southgate: England job was a poisoned chalice but I was motivated by vision of getting country behind the team

Ahead of England’s 1,000th international Gareth Southgate has spoken about the misgivings he held about the “poisoned chalice” of becoming manager – and how very few of the current squad would get into the teams he played in.

Southgate also talked about the pride he felt as an international, and now leading England, and his determination to “raise the bar” so that winning one World Cup is not an “outlier” in the nation’s footballing history.

England face Montenegro at Wembley on Thursday in a qualifier that, with at least a draw, would seal their participation in Euro 2020 with the Football Association inviting back all former England captains, those players with 50 or more caps and the 1966 World Cup winners to attend the fixture. Viv Anderson, the first black player to represent the England senior side, has also been invited.

The players will wear ‘legacy numbers’ on their shirts to match which number England international they are. The first international was played 147 years ago, back in 1872, when England faced Scotland in a goalless draw in Glasgow and if either James Maddison or Fikayo Tomori play against Montenegro they will be the 1,245^th to make their debut.

All of the surviving 19 England managers have also been invited – although it remains to be seen whether that includes Sam Allardyce who had just one match before resigning - with Southgate, though, explaining not just his pride but his concerns in taking over in October 2016.

“The job had been viewed as this poisoned chalice and there was almost - even I, at times, when I thought about would I want the role, you started to think of the negative parts that came with it, which were so high-profile for quite a few recent managers,” Southgate said. “But then you start to think about what those people achieved, and you have to, as a leader, think about the vision of what’s possible and how that would feel if we managed to get the country really behind the team and excited by the team and going and getting to the biggest matches with the team and trying to win.”

Southgate is also a former England defender earning 57 caps between 1995-2004 and was asked directly his 1-11 of the best players he featured alongside for his country. “Not a chance, not a chance,” he said before adding: “Most of them would get into the team we’ve got now, that’s for certain.”

Although that may appear a slight on the current squad it is, in truth, and apart from Harry Kane and Raheem Sterling, probably a fair assessment given Southgate, whose legacy number is 1,071, played alongside the likes of Paul Gascoigne, Alan Shearer, Paul Scholes, Ashley Cole, Sol Campbell, Tony Adams, Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard, Wayne Rooney and David Seaman.

“These are the debates that you don’t want to get involved in,” he said. “I’ve played with some of the greats of the last 25 years …

"For all of them, it meant so much. I can honestly say, whatever the reaction to the team was about, ‘They didn’t achieve’ or the various different teams, but when you’re in the dressing room with them and you’re with them for weeks away, you knew what it meant to all of them to play for England and to represent England on those big nights. Although it didn’t happen, it wasn’t because they didn’t want it, it was just that, for various reasons which we’ve talked about over the years, it didn’t.”

Last week Southgate visited the National Football Museum in Manchester. “I wasn’t quite sure what to expect going there but when you walk around it and see the history that you’ve been involved in, and you have an understanding that we’re talking over 100 years now,” Southgate said. “So, it’s still only 1,200 players who have ever had the chance to do it. I think 20 managers. So as a kid, all I wanted to do was play for England. That was coming home from school and watching them play in '82 in the World Cup.

“Whenever I played I was always thinking beforehand: 56 million people or whatever it was in the country, you’re one of 11 standing there belting out the national anthem. What that meant to my family, to the school I went to, to the Sunday teams I played for, coaches I’ve worked with. So, you couldn't be prouder, I thought, until you lead. And then you realise there’s an even more, I don’t want to say select group, but an even smaller group of people who have had that opportunity and that is an immense privilege. I was looking at the museum at Bobby Robson, Sir Alf [Ramsey], Terry [Venables] and people who I have incredible respect for and who I grew up revering and idolising and then appreciating more as you become a coach and a manager in terms of what they gave the game and what they did for England.”

Southgate has taken England as far as any manager since the World Cup triumph in 1966 by reaching the semi-finals last year and added:

“At the moment the win in the World Cup is the outlier whereas, in actual fact, historically, we looked at it as the benchmark. We are a small island and the fact that even in rugby and cricket we’ve had a brilliant run - the rugby team, huge credit to them - and they’ve only managed to win once and, with respect, there are fewer countries that are capable of winning.

“So, it’s hard to win and that’s got to be our aim. We’ve got to now raise the bar for the next decades to make sure they are more successful than the previous ones. But it’s … we can’t have that arrogance that maybe we’ve had over the years that we have a right to be in those latter stages, we have to earn it and, as a team and as a group of staff, we have to earn it.”