Saturday, October 12, 2024

Gareth Southgate responds to England being booed off before Euro 2024

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England manager Gareth Southgate admitted his players failed to live up to expectations after falling to a surprise defeat against Iceland in their final Euro 2024 warm-up match

Gareth Southgate insists England will be ready for Euro 2024 despite their 1-0 loss against Iceland(Channel 4 Sport)

Gareth Southgate will head for Euro 2024 with the derision of 81,410 Wembley fans ringing in his ears.‌

But as England’s send-off for a tournament they are widely-tipped to win turned into a humiliating defeat against a nation ranked 72nd in the world, the Three Lions boss insisted: “We’ll be ready for Serbia.”




Booed off after being embarrassed by Iceland, a familiar nemesis who knocked them out of the Euros eight years ago, Southgate’s flops looked nothing like the bookies’ favourites to triumph in Germany next month.

‌Defender John Stones is expected to be fit after being withdrawn at the break following an injury scare, but nothing else went right for England on a dismal night The Three Lions open their Euros campaign in Gelsenkirchen on June 16 and Southgate said: “I’m confident we will be better than we were tonight against Serbia in our opening game.

“I completely understand that we didn’t play well enough to keep the crowd excited. You would like a good performance and a crowd that’s been entertained to leave them on a high before the Euros and clearly we weren’t at the level we needed to be.

“It was a far from ideal night and I’m not going to dress up the disappointment as something else, so we have to stay calm because we will be better against Serbia. In a way it will focus the mind and it shows that any complacency, or thinking that talent alone is going to get us this trophy, won’t be enough. We have to be spot-on to win every game at this level. Iceland deserved to win, but it will focus our minds that we have to do better next weekend.

“It was a disjointed and disappointing performance and we didn’t show enough character. It’s not perfect but I’ve been involved in a lot of these last matches before a tournament as a player as well. No excuses for the result but there’s a lot of things we can put right quickly. There were questions asked that we weren’t able to answer.”

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