Southgate happy to have selection headache as England boss
Gareth Southgate says having a selection headache is a nice thing for him as England manager.Ahead of Saturdays Euro 2020 qualifier against Bulgaria, Southgate would not give too much away about his starting XI as he sat alongside Manchester United striker Marcus Rashford.He said: The competition for places is a great thing for us. As a coach, thats an enjoyable problem to have. View this post on Instagram Talking tactics. Ready for Bulgaria! A post shared by England (@england) on Sep 6, 2019 at 9:25am PDTOn Rashford, Southgate added: In terms of England, hes been a really consistent performer for us. Its great to see him have additional responsibility at United.On Englands chances of qualifying for Euro 2020, Southgate stressed that it would be a tough battle.The Three Lions began their Group A campaign with two wins from two and will be looking to build on that in their first fixture of the 2018-19 season.No keeping us out today @TomHeatonGK pic.twitter.com/f43lBOa8ip Marcus Rashford (@MarcusRashford) September 3, 2019He added: I think there are a number of teams who equally on their day as was proved in the summer are able to beat us as well.We have to strive to keep winning and keep pushing each other each day in training and if we do that, well take those performances onto the field.Earlier this week, Chris Powell was appointed as a coach in the England set-up and Southgate hopes he can bring some extra qualities.Chris Powell (left) joined the England set-up earlier this week (Tim Goode/PA)Southgate said of the decision to appoint the former Charlton, Huddersfield and Southend boss: Were trying to be at the forefront of giving opportunities to coaches from minority ethnic groups and Chris is a good example of someone whos fully qualified, has good experience as a manager and obviously experience of international football he has actually worked with some of the players in our squad when he was a club manager.So, Im hoping its going to be a brilliant insight for him into how we work.Hell be able to bring qualities we dont have within our coaching team.We hope to create role models that young people can aspire to. Welcome, Chris! Through our Elite Coach Placement Programme, in partnership with the @PFA, former #ThreeLions defender Chris Powell will join Gareth Southgates coaching team this season.https://t.co/UsSy76exZT England (@England) September 2, 2019That they can see there is opportunity. That they can see that some of the barriers that they feel have been there, have been broken down. We think thats a very strong and important message.Ahead of the match, Rashford called on social media platforms to do more to tackle online racist abuse.The United forward said: Its obviously disappointing. It seems to me like things have been going backwards rather than forwards.What dreams are made of @England https://t.co/M7xrzF7y7S Marcus Rashford (@MarcusRashford) September 4, 2019All around the world people have been standing together and thats all we can do. We have to rely on the campaigns to deal with the situation because our voice (as players) only has so much power.For me, its too easy to do whatever you like on the internet. Any of us now could go on and create accounts and write what we want under anybodys posts and nobody would ever know.Its easy to figure it out and if you have to show identification to create an account that means everybody can only have one account. For me, theres hundreds of thousands of people that use my name on social media and they can write what they like.The boss says @JesseLingard is the only doubt ahead of the game, having missed this morning's session with a minor illness.https://t.co/7Ps99BqsAE England (@England) September 6, 2019England midfielder Jesse Lingard missed Fridays training session at St Georges Park due to a minor illness.A Football Association spokesman told the PA news agency that the Manchester United player had been kept away from the rest of the team as a precaution, but was still hopefully available for selection for the match at Wembley.A back problem has already ruled out Lingards United team-mate Aaron Wan-Bissaka.(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){
(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),
m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)
})(window,document,'script','//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga');
ga('create', 'UA-72310761-1', 'auto', {'name': 'pacontentapi'});
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'referrer', location.origin);
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension1', 'By PA Sport Staff');
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension2', '27048bc7-63e7-48ee-9e52-0a23f6c16ca8');
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension3', 'paservice:sport,paservice:sport:football,paservice:sport:uk,paservice:sport:world');
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension6', 'story');
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension7', 'composite');
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension8', null);
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension9', 'sport:football');
ga('pacontentapi.send', 'pageview', { 'location': location.href, 'page': (location.pathname + location.search + location.hash), 'title': 'Southgate happy to have selection headache as England boss'});