England will be the team to beat at the European Championships this summer and if I was advising Gareth Southgate amid rumours making him the next manager of Manchester United, I’d say, sit tight instead.
This England squad have at least two more tournaments in them – going by their age – and Gareth should hang around and enjoy the fruits of that.
He enjoyed a huge slice of luck in how he got the job following Sam Allardyce’s departure and has benefited from the very timely development of this highly talented English group.
As he well knows from his time with Middlesbrough, managing a club side with its daily demands is a whole different job.
Gareth is non-confrontational; he has a safe image so that will appeal to some. Yet look at the three most successful managers in the Premier League: Pep Guardiola, Jurgen Klopp and Mikel Arteta, they are all very emotional, passionate characters who wear their heart on their sleeves. That’s not Gareth. Of course, there is more than one way to get a job done but the United job, if it comes up, needs a big character.
Bigger, more experienced managers, like Louis van Gaal and Jose Mourinho have had a decent crack at it but ultimately still failed while little has improved under the very different approach of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Erik ten Hag.
As I’ve said before, whoever takes that job needs to get recruitment right first. Find top players and they don’t need telling twice, they do the job for you. I was part of a dressing room like that as a player with Liverpool and I had that as a manager with Rangers.
Sure, there’s a connection between Dan Ashworth, who is coming in as technical director at United, and Gareth but is that enough? No, if England win the Euros, his best bet is to stay put.
Gareth has got a chance to look at another couple of good prospects against Brazil on Saturday night in Jarrad Branthwaite and Kobbie Mainoo.
Should they start or come on I’d expect them to handle it well, firstly, because they are both talented young football players and secondly, it’s a friendly and I don’t put any stock in friendlies.
At Liverpool, the management openly encouraged us to miss these type of games. I got 54 caps for Scotland and would have won a lot more but passed up the opportunity to play in meaningless friendlies. That stayed with me as a manager as if you ever went to watch a player in such a game it was usually a waste of time. The players weren’t really at it and you learned very little.
There’s a fuss around preparing for an international debut and it’s generally true that the higher the level you go in football your thought process has to be quicker, your touch has to be better and you should never give the ball away cheaply but in a friendly that process is always a yard behind.
I actually made my international debut in a friendly against East Germany in 1974. It was special to pull on the Scotland shirt but that first game wasn’t something that concerned me too much. My aim was just to win it, I wasn’t nervous. We knew very little about East Germany and I was blessed with confidence, so it was not something I got too worked up about.
Similarly, Brazil should hold no fears for Branthwaite and Mainoo. They are both really good footballers, athletic and capable of taking the ball in tight spaces. They’re prepared to pick a pass instead of those who are happy to shift on the responsibility.
To underline my point, when you are in the tunnel, waiting to go out, there are two types of players: the footballer who hopes to get through 90 minutes without make a mistake and the proper football player who says, ‘I can’t wait to get out there and be the difference today’. Branthwaite and Mainoo are the latter. They’ve both got a bright future for Gareth Southgate to count on.
