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Gareth Southgate has admitted that the furor over Phil Foden and Mason Greenwood led him to play conservatively in a 0-0 draw with Denmark on Tuesday because he feared he would not be able to afford a loss in the wake of the incident involving the pair.
The England manager plans to speak in more detail with Foden and Greenwood, who were sent home from Iceland, where the team won 1-0 on Saturday, for breaking Covid-19 restrictions, to better understand how it happened and establish the base. for reconciliation.
Foden and Greenwood jeopardized the security of the squad bubble by inviting two women to the team’s hotel on Sunday and breaking Icelandic protocols regarding containing the spread of the virus.
Southgate has said the pair must regain their confidence and it is unlikely that he will select them for the October internationals against Wales, Belgium and Denmark. But her admission that the aftermath of the controversy somehow helped shape her approach against Denmark was surprising.
Southgate experimented with a 3-4-3 system that had two midfielders in front of the defense. England improved when they featured more offensive midfielders Mason Mount and Jack Grealish in the second half, but their team finished the game with just one shot on goal.
“On the back of everything in the last few days, we needed to be safe and solid,” Southgate said. “If we had been light and open and seen disaster, we could have left here with a completely different outcome and everyone pointing out what happened. [with Foden and Greenwood] as the cause of it. We just needed a solid base to work with. “
Southgate decided not to condemn Foden and Greenwood on Monday, possibly so as not to overshadow Denmark’s preparation for the game, which was a curious move. But he strongly criticized them after the game, saying he now needed to “think about a lot of conversations that need to happen” with them.
“I don’t know the two guys well and I need to spend time understanding this whole situation much better than I had time to talk Monday,” Southgate said. “I literally had 10 minutes before training and five minutes before we left [for Denmark] so for something as significant as we’ve been through, that’s not an appropriate opportunity to really sit down and talk about things.
“Trust can be built in many different ways. I talked about Ainsley [Maitland-Niles] entering for 10 minutes [against Denmark] And, as a coach, when you put a player in, you’re looking for the right decisions and the right impact, even in a 10 minute period. So you’re happy to give them 25 or 45 and so on. “
Southgate had been left without eight players due to injury: Ben Chilwell, Luke Shaw, Jordan Henderson, Ross Barkley, Harry Winks, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, James Maddison and Marcus Rashford, and six others had not trained for about two weeks when they joined. joined by his participation in the final Champions League and Europa League tournaments in August. They were Kyle Walker, Foden, Raheem Sterling, Kieran Trippier, Greenwood, and Conor Coady.
Southgate also mentioned that he had “four others who had not played a preseason minute due to quarantine and other issues,” which were Trent Alexander-Around, Mount, Harry Kane and Tammy Abraham. He had to deal with the Harry Maguire scandal and, after losing Walker following his red card against Iceland, the Foden and Greenwood affair was the last straw.
“You always have these incidents, they’re just what they’re going to be,” Southgate said. “This time we seem to have gone through most of the book, but it is an incredible setting. It was when I was playing and it feels even more complex in the modern world. I think this was a really difficult month for the players to get closer to the level they want to be. “
