Plenty of people might owe Southgate an apology
Gareth Southgate must have known the question was coming.
All week – no, all tournament – the England manager has been accused by fans and some of the media of being too cautious in his Euro 2020 team selections.
Again, when his team was announced for the last-16 meeting with Germany on Tuesday, the same complaints began to surface. No Jack Grealish. No Phil Foden. No Mason Mount. No Jadon Sancho. All on the bench.
By full-time, though, Southgate had been vindicated. With the hame evenly balanced until the later stages, Grealish was eventually introduced and played a part in both of England’s goals – scored by Raheem Sterling and Harry Kane.
A place in the quarter finals secured, he was asked by the BBC about whether his “cautious” tactics had actually proven to be a masterplan.
“You change the shape, you pick certain personnel instead of others and if it goes wrong, you’re dead.” he said.
“We had to go about it in the way we believed. We wanted aggressive pressure all over the field. We felt that to match them up was the way of doing that. We felt that speed in behind Harry [Kane] could cause them a problem. I thought Bukayo [Saka] and Raheem [Sterling] really created that jeopardy in their backline.”
He added: “The whole team defended incredibly throughout. It was a fabulous performance and I can’t give enough credit.”
Gareth Southgate guided England to their first knockout win against Germany in 55 years.
This is what he had to say…
📲💻Highlights: https://t.co/8rdgHgERKQ#bbceuro2020 #ENGGER https://t.co/KHQO15HsaW
— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) June 29, 2021
