Southgate in his bubble as England seek best Euros start
England will win their opening two games of a European Championship for the first if they beat Denmark on Thursday, something manager Gareth Southgate said can get lost in all the negative noise around the team.
England have the chance to build on their Group C lead after beating Serbia 1-0, only the second time they have opened the tournament with a win in 11 appearances. The first was in 2020 against Croatia when Southgate was also in charge.
“I’ve been in this environment for eight years, so I understand (the negativity). It used to annoy me, now I’m ambivalent to it,” Southgate told reporters on Wednesday.
“Winning matches in tournaments is incredibly hard. And this tournament, you’ve now got the extra dimension of incredible support (from travelling fans) for all the teams in the stadiums as well. So that’s a little bit different to the last two tournaments we’ve been in.”
Loaded with attacking talent, England arrived as one of the favourites, but the win over was Serbia was laboured and they had to hang on grimly in the second half.
“Maybe even we sort of take wins for granted, which we shouldn’t,” Southgate said. “I should definitely let the boys enjoy their wins more than they do. I get about 45 seconds of enjoyment, the whistle blows, I cuddle everybody, I walk off the pitch and then that’s it.”
Southgate does not discourage his players from reading newspapers or engaging on social media, but the 53-year-old prefers to stay in a bubble at major tournaments.
“My world’s a happier place if I shut myself off,” he said. “It’s not good from a global perspective because I haven’t got a clue what’s going on in politics or events elsewhere. But for the next month, that’s going to be a better place for me.
“There’s more noise around every national team than there ever is in a club team, millions of people in your own country, extensively media coverage, social media, one guy writing a comment on social media gets put in a newspaper, now that’s a story,” he added. “So, it’s a different world.”
Defender Kyle Walker also steers clear of press coverage.
“If you have outside noise, people take it in different ways, so I’d rather not see it and just concentrate on what’s in camp, what the gaffer says, what my mum says,” he said. “Mum always tells me I have a good game.”
England will again be without Luke Shaw as he continues with his recovery from injury. The Manchester United left back has not played since February.