Gareth Southgate says he will consider his future as the England manager only after Euro 2024 with his sole focus being on winning the tournament in Germany this summer.
Southgate is under contract with the Football Association until December, an arrangement that will give both parties the chance to reflect on the finals and ensure any handover is not rushed – if one is required at all.
He knows that his well-fancied team will have to go extremely well in Germany if there is to be a public appetite for him to continue; he is sensitive to the mood of the country in this regard. And that probably means winning a first major men’s trophy since the 1966 World Cup.
What Southgate wanted to make clear as he spoke after the draw in Paris for the next edition of the Nations League – England are in a second tier group with the Republic of Ireland, Greece and Finland following their relegation from the top tier – was that he had not yet made a decision on whether he would stay on for the 2026 World Cup campaign.
“You’ve got to see how the summer goes – it’s as simple as that,” he said. “I know what we’re capable of achieving. I know what my own benchmark of success would be and after that I’m not really thinking about anything else. My only focus is to try and win the tournament for England.
“We’ve got to deliver performance and you’ve got to make the best decisions for everybody. I won’t be in a position to make that decision before the tournament. If we did anything before, it would be detrimental to the performance – whichever way your decision went.”
Southgate has been the manager for 91 games, having taken charge of his first one in October 2016 and he will bring up the century if his team reaches the quarter-finals of the Euros. They are due to play friendlies against Brazil and Belgium in late March and Bosnia and Herzegovina and Iceland in early June; all of the games are at Wembley apart from the one with Bosnia, which is at St James’s Park.
The focus will turn increasingly to how Southgate arrives at his squad for the tournament and he was quizzed about a clutch of players, beginning with Jordan Henderson, who completed a January move from Al-Ettifaq to Ajax – mainly to boost his England chances. Southgate went to Amsterdam to watch Henderson’s Ajax debut on Saturday in the 1-1 draw with PSV Eindhoven.
“It’s easier to assess somebody playing in a European league,” Southgate said. “He’ll be excited about the game the other night. He’s had a really warm welcome [at Ajax] and I’m sure that will mean a lot to him.”
Southgate said he had not spoken to many of his players since December when the subject of Marcus Rashford was brought up; the Manchester United striker made the wrong kind of headlines after a night out in Belfast towards the end of January.
“We’re five weeks away from picking a squad [to face Brazil and Belgium], although so much happens to players over the period between November and March that we’re always sitting and observing everything on and off the pitch,” Southgate said.
He gave a little more when asked about the progress of Rashford’s United teammate, Kobbie Mainoo; the 18-year-old from Stockport has to be on his radar after a series of stunning performances.
“He’s doing brilliantly,” Southgate said. “I’m not certain he’s necessarily going to be a defensive midfielder, as such. He’s quite a progressive player but he’s had a fabulous start to his career and it will be good to monitor him as we go forward.”
