English football appears to be having a moment. There are four Premier League clubs in the Champions League quarter-finals for the first time since 2009 and, while the actual number of English players involved in that success might be relatively small, the upside for Gareth Southgate when international football returns on Friday is the ability to select one of the most potent forward lines available to anyone attempting to reach next year’s European Championship.
Injury permitting, England should be able to field Tottenham’s Harry Kane, Manchester City’s Raheem Sterling and Manchester United’s Marcus Rashford against the Czech Republic at Wembley and for the trip to Montenegro, a trio of goalscoring forwards all in top form for their clubs. It is true Sterling and Rashford are behind Kane in terms of scoring goals for their country, though both are enjoying the sort of Manchester seasons that suggest they can be more than just support acts as England look to build on the progress made last year.
“We’ve got more than three forwards but what I can say about the three we’ve played in our last few matches is that they all have the same mentality,” Southgate said. “They all want to be the best they can be, they all feel they can be among the best in the world and that’s brilliant. It’s hugely exciting when you have three attacking players of that quality as well as alternatives in Jesse Lingard, Dele Alli and Jadon Sancho.
“There’s more players I could name actually. Whenever we bring the squad together the training is really intense because of the competition between players. That is exactly what you want and need. If we are going to continue to improve and constantly be hitting semi-finals and possibly finals, we’ve got to handle expectations. To do that you need players who are going to step up, players who aren’t satisfied with where they are and want to get better.”
Captain Kane is the model professional who sets the standard for others to follow, even though Sterling has a dozen more caps. Sterling is, in fact, the second most experienced player in the present squad with 47 caps, one behind Jordan Henderson. The fact a 24-year-old is so close to a half-century of caps seemed to come as a surprise even to Southgate. “It’s phenomenal to be his age and already on that number of caps,” the England manager said. “Raheem’s still got huge possibility ahead of him, so goodness knows how many he will end up with. But, if his performances continue as they have with his club this year, then his future is extremely bright.
“He was a fundamental part of us getting to a semi-final last year; he was always in our first-choice team. We thought he made a huge contribution and that’s why we kept on playing him. The only bit missing from his game were goals, which came in the autumn. I think the game in Spain was an important one for him, because two goals on a really big stage will only have improved his confidence.”
Rashford’s confidence has also surged as a result of Manchester United’s revival and a more regular role under Ole Gunnar Solskjær, though Southgate believes he was making good progress in any case.
“For a 21-year-old I thought his minutes for his club were fine really,” he said. “I was never worried. I know he wasn’t always first-choice at United but, if you looked over the period of the season and the number of European matches as well, he was getting more minutes than most kids of his age, so we were happy with his progress. We always felt he would be an important player for us. I remember working with Marcus with the under-21s. From the very first day you knew you were looking at a top player, someone with the desire to improve his technique and be as good as he can possibly be, and I haven’t seen anything to change my mind about that. I haven’t seen any lowering of standards.”
Kane, Sterling and Rashford should all get the chance to let their quality shine through on the international stage this year, either in the Euro 2020 qualifiers or the last four of the Nations League (remember that?), in Portugal in June. There is quality and youthful promise right through the squad – with perhaps a slight area of concern over the lack of goalkeeping experience – though the front end of the team is what inspires confidence. Southgate thinks so, at any rate.
“You sometimes look at other countries and what they are doing, and then you have to try and look back at ours in the same way,” he said. “When we look at the options we’ve got we think: ‘OK, if I were playing against us I would be worrying about that area of the pitch in particular.’”
The Guardian Sport
