Gareth Southgate took years to build a positive culture – England damaged it in months

Gareth Southgate - Gareth Southgate's England culture took years to build – and just months to destroy
Gareth Southgate insisted that players who did not want to play for the England side in certain games were not wanted - PA/Aaron Chown

Sometimes it just needs the captain to call it as it is. After all that is part of the responsibility of having the armband.

“It’s a tough period of the season and maybe it’s been taken advantage of a little bit,” Harry Kane said of the mass withdrawals – eight in all – from the England squad who face two vital Nations League group games. That became nine later in the day when Jarrad Branthwaite pulled out.

“I don’t really like it, if I’m totally honest,” Kane added. “I think England comes before any club situation.”

And with that we are back in club-versus-country territory. A terrain we thought had been left behind several years ago, that belonged to a distant and very dim past when England most certainly was secondary but which, as Kane alludes, has quickly resurfaced following the departure of Gareth Southgate.

“Gareth was hot on that,” Kane said referring to the former manager’s insistence that England comes first. The forward even suggested that Southgate had bombed out players who did not show that level of commitment and there are those   such as James Maddison, who was photographed in a casino after being released from England duty having said he was ill, who have found themselves in the wilderness for a period of time.

There is no need to dig too deep – or dig at all – to feel Kane’s frustration. There is little to decode from his words. It is clear what he means. He has called it as he sees it and there is no doubting the implication: Southgate worked hard to create the right competitive culture with England, one in which even injured players turned up just to be part of it, and it is now in danger of being compromised.

Cultures can be very difficult to maintain unless standards are preserved. It feels a little like the Football Association has forgotten how heavy wearing the England shirt used to be for players, how many of them did not enjoy a call-up or being away with their country, how it affected performances and results and took a psychological toll. How recent is the nadir of Iceland in Nice in 2016 and that awful, terrible exit from the European Championship?

Gareth Southgate and Harry Kane - Gareth Southgate's England culture took years to build and months to destroy
Southgate created a culture while England manager, one that Harry Kane respected – unlike some of his international team-mates - Getty Images/Eddie Keogh

It may sound brutal but this also needs to be said: the FA has allowed the air of the supply teacher being in the building to infect England by carrying on with Lee Carsley as interim manager for this international camp.

This is not in any way to blame Carsley, who has tried to discharge his duty as diligently and honestly as he can after stepping up from the England Under-21s where he wants to return.

But by agreeing that Thomas Tuchel can wait until Jan 1 before beginning as England’s head coach there is suddenly a sense of drift, a sense that this get-together and these games are not actually that important.

Tuchel apparently signed his contract on Oct 8 and will not start until almost three months later. That is simply illogical and has no sense of urgency. There is nothing contractual with his former club, Bayern Munich, preventing him. There is no financial reason or attempt by the FA to save money. Tuchel wants his coaching team in place – and his No 2 Anthony Barry cannot be released from his contract with Portugal right now – but that still does not explain why it is sensible to delay.

And so why should a Premier League player who is carrying an injury – one that might not prevent him playing for his club if they had a game this midweek but could benefit from a rest – turn up?

No one is saying that the players who have dropped out of Carsley’s original 26-man squad have not done so for genuine reasons. But nine? Would that be the case – it must be asked – had Tuchel taken the squad as he should have done and the road to the next World Cup started here?

However secure a player feels in the squad, would he have risked the failing to impress the manager who will decide whether he goes to the next tournament if England qualify?

Also, it would only be natural for a club manager concerned by the strain on his squad, worried about the excessive workload that is affecting his team’s chances – and his job security – to turn around and say: “Well maybe this is one you can afford to skip because the new man is not even going to be there.”

Is that too strong? Is that unfair? Maybe none of those conversations happened. But it is the England captain who is clearly implying that some players have “taken advantage a little bit” of the fact that it is undoubtedly a “tough” time of the season (and there have been significant drop-outs in the past, even under Southgate) and this is suddenly an opportunity for an unexpected break.

These two games have been presented as “dead rubbers”. They are far from it. They are competitive fixtures that matter. If England finish behind Greece in their Nations League group – and they need to win in Athens to give themselves a chance of avoiding that – then they go into a play-off in March.

So much for the new head coach starting on Jan 1 and concentrating solely on winning the next World Cup. That 18-month “clean slate plan” to concentrate solely on that tournament suddenly goes out of the window.

There may also be a knock-on effect to England’s qualification campaign and when those games can be scheduled and plans to play two friendlies in the United States to help prepare of the World Cup. So Greece away and the Republic of Ireland at Wembley really do matter. And if England lose to Greece? Will there be more withdrawals – given they would be play-off bound – before Sunday’s game at against Ireland which would certainly look like a meaningless game? It all feels unsatisfactory. That is not the media or fans or critics saying so. It comes from the captain.