England will be in ‘better place’ at Euro 2020 thanks to extra year’s preparation, says Gareth Southgate

Gareth Southgate believes England are in “a better place” than they were a year ago, with the squad well primed as they prepare for a delayed Euro 2020.

The 4-0 win over Iceland marked the end of an abnormal, with the Covid crisis also coinciding with what appeared a drop-off in the attacking play. England had ended 2019 as the highest-scoring side in Europe, and seemed set for Euro 2020, but Southgate believes that was someway illusory and that there is much more depth now.

“We’ve got this strange split where half of the squad from Russia have drifted away really,” Southgate said. “They’re not playing with their clubs or have retired from international football so we’ve got a lot of guys who were the base of the team against Iceland - [Kieran] Trippier, [Kyle] Walker, [Eric] Dier, [Harry] Maguire, [Jordan] Pickford - who have good experiences and have started to build a lot of caps. But then we have this younger group who are really innocent at international level in terms of the number of caps and experiences and a lot of them are so young as well.

“We’ve got to keep improving and they’ve got to learn from all the experiences they’ve had but I think we are definitely in a better place than we would have been after last autumn because those games weren’t the challenge we needed to improve.

“This autumn’s games have and so we’ll be better placed for next summer, whether we will be far enough ahead only time is going to tell. But we feel happier about the depth we’ve got from last Autumn, we feel very excited about the young players coming through and that is going to be for now but even more so two, four, six years time. We think England are in a good position for the future.

“And we’re looking forward to working with everyone in March to see what we can progress then.”

Southgate said he will look to give the players a break between a congested club season and the Euros, even though there is not much time.

“Before the World Cup we gave them a period of holiday and we think that is important psychologically as well as physically,” he said.

“Of course, we hope people will be able to travel to go away by that point but that is a bit of an unknown. The scheduling will be complicated but we have very good people for planning and physical periodisation and we’ll just have to adapt and adjust.

“It is less time than normal for a tournament but it is more time than we get for the regular camps and our time on the training pitch we use well, we feel the team develops well on the field and pick up the messages well. We back that up off the field with the meetings we have. You’d always like more time with the players but we’ll maximise what we’ve got.”

Read more: England’s Euro 2020 fixtures, full schedule, group, dates, fixtures and ticket details

What has most pleased Southgate has been the development of a proper squad. While it will give him some decisions to cut around 35 players to 23, the England manager feels that is essential in a season that will inevitably see injuries.

“We’ve always said this is why we need a squad," he said. "This year will be the biggest advocate of that because we just don’t know who we will have for March or the end of the season. What we have got is some depth now back up by more youngsters we think can come through as well. So the long-term for England looks good, we’ve got to keep winning in the short-term and make sure we maximise this group now and the experienced players amongst them.”

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