Roy Keane and Gary Neville clashed over the importance of team spirit within the England camp while assessing their World Cup chances.
The Three Lions demolished Iran 6-2 in their opening encounter on Monday with five different goal scorers. Bukayo Saka netted twice for Gareth Southgate’s side but Jude Bellingham, Raheem Sterling, Marcus Rashford and Jack Grealish – the latter two came on as substitutes – were also on target.
Not only was it encouraging from an England point of view to secure an impressive opening day victory but to do so with so many of the squad playing an influential role would have been particularly pleasing for Southgate.
This is especially true with so many players competing for a first-team spot with Rashford, Grealish and Phil Foden among the attacking talent who will believe they should be involved with the start – and rotation likely to be required throughout the tournament.
Keane said on ITV Sport ahead of Friday night’s match vs the USA: “They’ve had a good start, six goals. I never believe all that nonsense about team spirit; I never hear a manager or in the media say there’s a bad spirit in the group.
“There should be after the game and three or four days, they look happy, playing game of darts, they’re going to be upbeat. The most important thing is winning football matches, lets see if they’ll laugh in a couple of weeks.”
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However, Neville disagreed and insisted that the spirit throughout the group and beyond the starting players was important: “In a tournament when you’ve got 26 players, 15 of them on the bench, eight of them might not even play, you do need a good group. It can bring group down but the lads who are not playing as important as the lads who are playing.”
Southgate named an unchanged starting line-up to face the USA to the side that so comprehensively beat Iran in their opening encounter, and he explained: “It is never straightforward because you are always thinking should you freshen things, look for something different but I think the team deserve to go again.
“If I was a player, I thought I’d earn the right and I think we’ve got good competition for places to come in to change it but I thought we were right to go with this starting team.”
