Gareth Southgate looks to follow the lead of Liverpool and Tottenham with sensational victory in Europe

What a time to be English. While we accept the Englishness of the Premier League has never been more compromised, it is also the case that the coach of the national side has not been this enthused about England’s prospects since Sir Alf Ramsey was pinning up a team sheet half a century ago.

Though only 30 per cent of the Premier League’s playing resource is available to Gareth Southgate, it is a high quality segment, 10 of whom are involved in the all-English finals of Europe’s premier cup competitions. That number would have stood at a round dozen had Ruben Loftus-Cheek not joined his Chelsea teammate Callum Hudson-Odoi on the impaired list.

So a year on from a narrow World Cup semi-final defeat, England are once more in the last four of an international tournament. The Nations League finals do not have quite the ring of a World or European Champions Cup. Nevertheless England’s participation alongside Holland, who they meet in the semi-final three weeks hence, Portugal and Switzerland represents continuity and progress. Let’s face it, any pot is worth winning for a country with England’s CV, but more than that Southgate values the experience of sudden death in a rarified setting.

‘You have to have jeopardy’

“We have had a high level of matches which is important for our growth as a team. It’s appeal to the public in terms of the tournament… you have to have jeopardy. The beauty of the Champions League is the jeopardy of the away goals which means one mistake, one error one bit of brilliance can mean so much. In terms of entertainment, sport should be about that. This competition has captured that. Not just our group but other qualifying groups.”

The core of Southgate’s team will come hardened by the experience of a Champions League final. How many of the nine participants, six from Spurs, three from Liverpool, survive the physical interrogation is one thing. Coping with the mental demands of winning or losing another. Southgate has only five days to assimilate the returnees before selecting his side to face the Dutch. Should they prevail he will have a further three days before sending England out in the final. If nothing else it replicates the big tournament experience.

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“I think the psychological [factor] is huge and that is [about the] feel. Everybody has as much help as they can across the staff to make the decisions, but in the end you’re 30 years in football and the knowledge of what it is to go into those big matches and come out on either side, that has to guide you. We know the individual players to be able to sense when they are feeling in the right place and when they are not. You pick some of that up on the training pitch, from conversations and body language. As a coach, one of the biggest things is to observe. You are constantly watching them and observing their behaviours.”

‘We’ll play it by ear with Harry Kane’

Southgate is as mindful of the impact on the winners as he is on the losers. “I wouldn’t say the guys that win are going to be fine and ready for a game either. They will have had an enormous high and that needs a lot of refocusing onto another challenge in a very small space of time. I don’t think it is as straightforward as those that win are great and ready to go. Those that lose might be ready to get out there and ready to fight. We just have to monitor that.”

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The fitness of Harry Kane is a quandary Southgate is pleased to have, given the grave diagnosis when his skipper limped out of the first leg of the Champions League quarter-final against Manchester City almost six weeks ago. Kane could start for England even if he does not feature for Spurs. “I don’t think it is an absolute he has to play there. Equally he could play in the final and not be right four days later for us. We are just going to have to play it by ear because he is not going to have had a game prior to that point. He is one I will make an exception for in that I will see how it goes in the final week.”