Gary Lineker claims England players will be questioning Gareth Southgate’s tactics

Gary Lineker and Alan Shearer have claimed England’s players will have begun openly questioning Gareth Southgate’s team selection and tactics ahead of their European Championship last-16 clash with Slovakia.

The BBC’s star Euro 2024 presenter and pundit resumed their criticism of Southgate’s managerial decisions on the latest episode of their The Rest is Football podcast, despite both admitting they would not be up to the job themselves.

Asked if he would take the England manager’s job, Lineker – who previously suggested Southgate was “tactically inept” – replied: “Would I f---!”. You’re joking. I’d be terrible.”

In response to the same question, Shearer, who like Lineker has savaged the national team’s performances in Germany, added: “What? To get absolutely hammered? You’ve got millions and millions of people picking the right team.”

Among Lineker and Shearer’s criticisms of Southgate has been his refusal to move Jude Bellingham to midfield alongside Declan Rice or start Anthony Gordon or Cole Palmer, concerns they insisted England’s players would share.

Lineker, who also accused Southgate of making “a mistake” by not taking a back-up for injured left-back Luke Shaw, said: “I’m not sure they’d pick the team but there’s no question the England players, I think, at the moment, will be going, ‘What is going on on the left-hand side? Why’s Bellingham keep playing in 10 when he’s clearly a midfielder?’

“Sometimes, they might all get together, in a team meeting for example, and air their views.

“You always talk amongst each other. You’re not going to go, ‘This is the team I would play’, but there will be certain ones going, ‘Palmer is unlucky not to get a game; I thought Gordon would be an answer to the left-side problem’.”

Shearer added: “There’s loads of reasons why they would do that. We’ve analysed loads of reasons on what could be better but there is no doubt the players will speak to each other and say, ‘Why are we doing that?’, and the leadership group or the captain may go to the manager and say, ‘This is what’s been said’, or, ‘This is what we feel’, and they’re well within their rights to do that, but the managers make their own decisions.”

Lineker continued: “Do you think there’s a problem within the England camp? There seems to be. There’s a few cryptic messages coming out from players in interviews.”

Shearer replied: “It has not really happened much under Gareth, but [now is] more so than it has ever happened under his time. Players are saying different things. ‘We struggled with the press’, or, ‘Struggling with three at the back’, ‘We know we didn’t play well’.

“And with Gareth saying it’s because of the circumstances, it seems a bit mixed up at the minute.”

He added: “It’s amazing isn’t it, the life of a manager, the love that Gareth was getting all those years ago? And now you can see the reaction. But that can change, can’t it?”