Gareth Southgate: I will stay with England for 2022 World Cup if I feel 'warmth'

Gareth Southgate wants to remain as England manager for the next World Cup if there is the “warmth for him to do so” after Euro 2020 and he is already planning for the tournament in Qatar.

After reaching the semi-finals of the last World Cup Southgate signed a new deal that takes him up to 2022 but there has been speculation that he may be tempted back into club management next summer.

Southgate revealed that he will begin preparations for England’s World Cup campaign next month when he travels to Qatar to inspect “a couple of camps” where the team could be based. He added that it was important to be organised like Germany who always secure “the best bloody hotel” at any finals.

Following England’s concluding Euro 2020 qualifier — the 4-0 win away to Kosovo that ensured they will be one of the six top seeds at the tournament — Southgate admitted that it had been a trying week for him personally after Raheem Sterling’s attack on Joe Gomez and the subsequent fall-out.

The England squad will not meet up again until March when there will be two friendlies — there will be four in total before they kick off at Wembley on June 14 — and Southgate said he would contact players “individually” to keep track on them rather than try and have a meeting as his predecessor, Roy Hodgson, once did at St George’s Park.

Southgate and his coaching staff will assess England’s group-stage opponents following the draw in Bucharest on November 30, and will spend the next few months examining other rivals at Euro 2020, with the manager also going to watch Liverpool take part in the Club World Cup.

“I’m actually going to go to Qatar to watch some of Liverpool’s games, but also it’s exactly the time the World Cup will be played there. So climate will be ideal to get a feel of, and pinpoint a couple of camps that we would stay in there,” Southgate explained.

Asked whether this was an indicator of his commitment to remain in the post until 2022, Southgate responded: “Well, that depends very much on how we get on next summer.” Southgate, who does not have a break clause in his contract with the Football Association, added: “When you have a week like I’ve had, you sense that people can fall out of love with you and if there isn’t a warmth for you to continue, then that can start to affect the team. So, I’m realistic about how quickly those tides can turn.”

Nevertheless Southgate said it was a key part of his role to plan ahead in any case — something England have been guilty of not doing in the past for fear of being accused of arrogance and appearing to assume they will qualify for tournaments.

“I think when I started and we looked at other federations, we were almost embarrassed to go and look at where we should be preparing for,” Southgate explained. “And Germany were always there and they’d already secured the best bloody hotel. So, I think we’ve had to be a bit bolder and say ‘no, look, it’s not a jinx to go and do it’. We’ve got to have belief in what we’re doing and execute the right preparation.

“Without taking any focus off what we’re doing next summer we’ve got to get the next bit right, otherwise we’ll be behind the curve. And I think the best organisations get that short-, mid- and long-term planning right.”

Southgate knows there is work to do if England are to live up to their billing as one of the favourites to win Euro 2020 and suggested that the work starts immediately after the sometimes “joyless” experience of going through a qualification campaign with an expectation to win all the games. “For me, it’s about what’s next and I know in the end we’ll always be judged ultimately by the tournaments in the summer,” Southgate said.

“We’ve got to accept that [England are one of the favourites]. We should go in feeling confident about ourselves and, equally, we know there are areas of the game we’ve got to get better at. But I think all the top teams will feel the same.

“The players have the belief, and we’ve got to keep giving them that belief, but we don’t tell them lies, we are pretty honest with our appraisals of their performances and the sorts of matches they’re going in to.”

Southgate said there is no point organising a get-together of the squad before March. “If you’re going to bring the group together, there’s got to be a real purpose,” he said. “And that, for me, can’t be just ‘we’re going out for dinner’, you know. So, I don’t think that’s realistic. We didn’t do it ahead of Russia. Their schedule with the clubs is so intense. So I think it’s better to individually get to them.”

Key to that will be form and fitness but also how much game-time some players get with their clubs — not least the Liverpool pair of Gomez and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain with the latter in particular emerging as a potential first-choice at the Euros despite not starting a Premier League game for Liverpool since September after his serious knee injury last year.

“I think they’re going to get their football,” Southgate said. “The key will be how be how many of the big matches they can play in, which determines a little bit the evidence that you can see of their form and their ability to perform under pressure.”