Southgate feels like he ‘commits a crime’ picking teams for England

Gareth Southgate has insisted that England have a “very strong squad” and he likened the scrutiny around his team selection to him committing a crime.

England faced Andorra on Saturday in their latest World Cup qualifier. The likes of Tammy Abraham, Bukayo Saka and Jack Grealish got on the scoresheet as The Three Lions won 5-0.

This result leaves them top of Group I on 19 points. Albania are their closest rivals as they are four points behind them. Poland are third in the group on 14 points.

‘Andorra away’ helps nobody…least of all Andorra and co

England host fourth-placed Hungary in their eighth group game on Tuesday evening. Southgate’s side would all but book their place at next year’s World Cup with a victory against Hungary.

Ahead of that game, Southgate spoke to reporters on Monday afternoon. As cited by BBC Sport, he suggested that he wants all of his squad to “feel involved”:

“There will be changes. We’ve got a very strong squad, and we want the squad to feel involved. It is important they know their value and can contribute.

“It wasn’t a friendly (against Andorra), there were qualification points at stake and I was really pleased with the quality of the performance as well as the application.

He added: “We can’t be a team that has a day off. We want to keep consistency, and we’ve had that throughout this calendar year. Everyone has pride in putting the shirt on. What pleased me after the summer is that there is a hunger to go to the next level.”

On Phil Foden, Southgate said: “I have a headache and commit a crime every time I pick a team. We have such strong competition for places; there were lots of players who did their own confidence and reputation the world of good the other day and that is pleasing to see.”

Southgate also offered support to Tyrone Mings, who vocalised his mental health issues during Euro 2020:

“It is one of the hardest things to play and professional sport, performing in front of a crowd of tens of thousands very often, with a television audience of millions.

“There is a lot of pressure on very young people. In this instance, I think it was performance anxiety; I had chats with Tyrone about it and there is always that doubt in your mind if you’ve not been in that level of game. Until you’ve done it, you don’t necessarily know that you can cope.”