Gareth Southgate insisted he will not hinder England’s chances of success to help his players’ clubs ahead of the final competitive match before he names his Euro 2020 squad.
Tottenham manager Jose Mourinho has been outspoken about how Southgate handles his players within an England camp. For these qualifiers, Mourinho said he hoped England would “protect” his striker and the Premier League’s joint leading scorer, Harry Kane.
Southgate completely rested Kane for the World Cup qualifier against San Marino last Thursday, then played his captain in Sunday’s match in Albania. Poland, who travel to Wembley on Wednesday night, are England’s toughest qualifying opponents and present Southgate with a real opportunity to challenge his players against a higher standard of side, meaning Kane, 27, is expected to start.
“Frankly every other country around Europe are either working in the same way or they’re playing the players even more, so we can’t hinder ourselves by always trying to think about how we help the clubs,” Southgate said. “We’ve got to win the matches. There are 60 million people waiting for that.”
Furthermore, the national manager defended the way England handle players when they are called up, explaining how thorough their process is in identifying an individual’s workload in both training and matches.
“We’ve managed the players, not only their match minutes but their training minutes and we’ve also taken into account what their match load has been like over the last couple of months,” Southgate continued. “That’s been part of our preparation for these camps. We do that as meticulously as we can.
“I think we do that professionally, we don’t take risks with players with any sort of injuries. But by the same token we think the players are physically in a good place.
“They’ve had a good training week, the ones who’ve needed more rest have had it. And our training sessions have been short and sharp and they’ve not been on the pitch for too long.”
Midfielder Declan Rice – who was also rested against San Marino, played the full game against Albania and is set to start on Wednesday night – has played every single minute of every game for West Ham United in his club’s impressive season competing for a place in the top four.
The 22-year-old claims he is fitter than ever and points to his lifestyle away from the pitch that enables him to compete consistently. He also noted that lockdown, enforced by the pandemic, has meant that there is little else players can do but keep fit.
“How do I do it? This season as I’ve got older I’ve realised how important off the pitch stuff is, the way you live your life away from football, what you do to boost your recovery to make you feel fitter,” Rice explained.
“This season I’ve really got myself in the gym a little bit more, really taken that side of things a bit more seriously. Tried to improve all aspects.”
He does concede, however, that West Ham’s absence from European competition makes it easier for him to keep fresh.
“I’m lucky that at the moment we’re not in Europe, where we’re playing on a Saturday and a Tuesday. At the moment it’s only one game a week which isn’t too bad.
“When the season was going on, Christmas and Boxing Day, it was like one game every three or four days. That’s tough. Mentally you’re training every day, you’re fit enough, you’ve just got to go out and do it.”
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/39pwo9V
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