“You don’t want to be too proud, to get carried away, but if people give you praise, you don’t want to throw it back.”
― Gareth Southgate
“In life, there are really complex, difficult jobs, and some are more complicated and difficult than others. But when you look around at inventions, or records that have been broken, you have to tell yourself that anything is possible.”
― Gareth Southgate
“When something goes wrong in your life, it doesn’t finish you, and you should become braver, knowing that you’ve got to go for things in life and don’t regret because you didn’t try to be as good as you might be.”
― Gareth Southgate
“You want all players to be free of overthinking. That’s when they’re in a good place and a good flow.”
― Gareth Southgate
“You can never say you’ve ‘made it,’ because that’s the day you stop progressing and improving.”
― Gareth Southgate
“As part of their recovery after a match, you want players to stay in the cold water for as long as they can, but naturally, they want to get out. You might have races or games in order to keep them engaged.”
― Gareth Southgate
“I nearly missed the births of both of my children, and both were around international weeks.”
― Gareth Southgate
“When you become England manager, the change in profile and interest in what you’re doing is on another level.”
― Gareth Southgate
“I’m very conscious I’ve got a lot of faults, the same as everyone, and I have done plenty of things wrong.”
― Gareth Southgate
“It’s impossible to please everybody all of the time, but you just have to believe that you’re making decisions for the right reasons.”
― Gareth Southgate
“I guess, at a club, you feel supported. Sometimes, with the national team, it hasn’t always felt that way.”
― Gareth Southgate
“I played international football for England, and in many games, we were technically inferior to the opposition.”
― Gareth Southgate
“I was always the captain of every club I played for, so I would expect to be somebody who put themselves forward.”
― Gareth Southgate
“In a team, you need players who are technically good and can perform under pressure.”
― Gareth Southgate
“Ultimately, playing at international level, at all age groups, is good for a player’s development, and that is good for clubs, too.”
― Gareth Southgate
“In England, we’ve spent a bit of time being lost as to what our modern identity is.”
― Gareth Southgate
“It was very painful to be so close to a World Cup final.”
― Gareth Southgate
“We always have to believe in what is possible in life and not be hindered by history or expectations.”
― Gareth Southgate
“Whenever you name a team and whenever you pick a squad, that is when you have to make the most difficult calls. To tell a player, ‘I’m not selecting you, and these are the reasons why…’ it’s tough.”
― Gareth Southgate
“I didn’t like it as a player when I felt a coach was fudging the reasons for leaving me out. As a player, I wanted to know where I was lacking in my game and where I could improve in order to get back in the team.”
― Gareth Southgate
“In the end, success in a shoot-out is being able to perform a particular skill under pressure.”
― Gareth Southgate
“When I think back to what my dreams were as a kid, the only one I had was to play for England.”
― Gareth Southgate
“We have to make the players who haven’t played matches feel valued.”
― Gareth Southgate
“A lot of teams who go on to win trophies lose in quarter-finals or semi-finals first.”
― Gareth Southgate
“If Brexit happens, there will have to be change – whether people want it or not – around work permits. It won’t be freedom of movement for European players, so that landscape will change.”
― Gareth Southgate
“I have been in sport in different areas for long enough to know what my life is day to day.”
― Gareth Southgate
“Unless you’re at a club long enough that can develop a philosophy of playing and recruiting players that fit that way of playing, then you have got to be adaptable.”
― Gareth Southgate
“It’s important to recognise every player is different in their own characteristics, personality, and what they respond to.”
― Gareth Southgate
“Always, as a coach, you have to be thinking not to flood the players with information. You have to think what’s key for the player, for that team, and how do we deliver it in a way that it might stick and have an effect.”
― Gareth Southgate
“Good decisions are not necessarily playing it short every time you get the ball. The best teams can play longer or have a threat behind or play through or around. They adapt.”
― Gareth Southgate
“I am extremely proud to be appointed England manager. However, I am also conscious getting the job is one thing; now I want to do the job successfully.”
― Gareth Southgate
“I’m determined to give everything I have to give the country a team that they’re proud of and one that they’re going to enjoy watching play and develop.”
― Gareth Southgate
“Good teams score late goals.”
― Gareth Southgate
“Harry Maguire’s potential is huge.”
― Gareth Southgate
“I’ve often said it’s not just the level of your opponent: it’s can you handle wearing the shirt and playing for England?”
― Gareth Southgate
“I was probably scarred by getting the sack at Middlesbrough.”
― Gareth Southgate
“Every time a young player comes in, he is excited and wants to prove himself, but also in football, the other players want to prove themselves to any new player that comes in, so that competition is the only way to stimulate performance.”
― Gareth Southgate
“If you are not constantly improving and learning, then you are going to be stuck and not progress.”
― Gareth Southgate
“You have to be savvy. You have to be tactically aware, because that’s what makes the difference in the big matches.”
― Gareth Southgate
“You have to cope with expectation if you want to play for England.”
― Gareth Southgate
“The players can associate playing for England with enjoyment, fun, and not being under siege and feeling everything is against them. There’s an energy and a connection back. That’s important in the short, mid, and long term as well.”
― Gareth Southgate
“Sometimes it’s not always a good decision to play if people’s energy isn’t quite there.”
― Gareth Southgate
“First and foremost, I love the job I’m in. I’m proud to be England manager.”
― Gareth Southgate
“I’m sure at some point in my life, I’ll want to go back to club football because people will say, ‘Oh well, he did OK as an international manager, but he didn’t work as a club manager.’”
― Gareth Southgate
“It’s an incredible privilege to be the England manager, but when you sit and think about the people who have got to this point before, people I hugely respect and admire… it’s difficult to put it into perspective, really.”
― Gareth Southgate
“Young players will suffer at times and have days when they can’t cope or adjust.”
― Gareth Southgate
“I’m no David Beckham.”
― Gareth Southgate
“I’m slightly concerned, because as a centre-half who took a lot of knocks to the head I’m not normally synonymous with being a fashion icon.”
― Gareth Southgate
“In any sport, you’re at your best when you’re playing without thinking too much.”
― Gareth Southgate
“I think one of the important things around tournaments and qualifying tournaments is the jeopardy around it.”
― Gareth Southgate
“I think we’ve always got to have a mind of the feeling for the supporters about the importance of each match. We’ve got to be careful not to make tournaments too big and then make qualifying too straightforward.”
― Gareth Southgate
“There are lots of statements that have been made and haven’t led to change and reform. For me, the broader discussion around racism – education is key.”
― Gareth Southgate
“The world always changes, and teams go through evolutions.”
― Gareth Southgate
“If we are gong to be an outstanding team, we need players who are going to step up in the big moments and realise, every time they play for England, they have the chance to be involved in an iconic moment, a historic performance, and that they have that choice every time they go on the field.”
― Gareth Southgate
“I think I’ve made decisions for the right reasons, and I’ve always communicated them in a respectful way. As a manager, you can’t do any more than that. I sit comfortably with that. But I’ve not enjoyed it.”
― Gareth Southgate
“No England international is a practice match. Every time you wear this shirt, it is of importance for you, the country, and the supporters.”
― Gareth Southgate
“Results are a consequence of doing things well and having high standards, improving the detail of how we play.”
― Gareth Southgate
“More expectation is a healthy thing and something we have to embrace.”
― Gareth Southgate
“Always, as a player, you are questioned and challenged about the next step. That’s what drives the very best: they want to continually win.”
― Gareth Southgate
“Our country has been through some difficult moments recently in terms of its unity. But sport can unite.”
― Gareth Southgate
“Write your own stories.”
― Gareth Southgate
“Nobody can tell me that if players are good enough, they will come through. That is not true. There are plenty of players who are good enough.”
― Gareth Southgate
“The quality of our academy system is very high, as good as anything in the world. Around the country, lots of people in youth development are keen to get together and find a solution to that 17-to-21 age bracket and how we get those players playing.”
― Gareth Southgate
“I think we have seen evidence that being brave enough to go abroad can lead to a proper opportunity.”
― Gareth Southgate
“When the positions of so many managers is precarious, and there isn’t long-term stability, I can understand why they are loath to risk.”
― Gareth Southgate
“My job is to allow people to dream. Make the impossible seem possible.”
― Gareth Southgate
“Whenever you’re in an England shirt, you have an opportunity to make history.”
― Gareth Southgate
“My players’ feeling is the most important thing for me.”
― Gareth Southgate
“My priority is, do my players feel supported from within their dressing room by their own federation?”
― Gareth Southgate
“You give everything you have, build friendships within your team – in international football, you give everything for your country and play in a way that you hope connects with the fans.”
― Gareth Southgate
“You expect the players to fight for their club and fight for their shirt, and when they come together, they are fighting for England.”
― Gareth Southgate
“In every position on the field, there’s really strong competition.”
― Gareth Southgate
“I don’t know how you get in the England squad without getting in the Arsenal team.”
― Gareth Southgate
“I don’t think the qualifying fixtures excite people. They’re games against countries that we are expected to beat, rightly so, and then how many we score dictates whether it’s a good performance or not.”
― Gareth Southgate
“It’s very difficult to pick a 17-year-old who’s had 10 minutes of first-team football. You’re talking about replacing senior players with some 17-year-olds who haven’t played Premier League football.”
― Gareth Southgate
“If we are encouraging kids to go into academies, then presumably we are selling them the dream that they can play first-team football.”
― Gareth Southgate
“I am not sure I will ever wear a waistcoat again, frankly!”
― Gareth Southgate
“Whenever people speak, you give the opposition the opportunity to use those words as they see fit.”
― Gareth Southgate
“You always have to be conscious of how your words can provide motivation to the opposition.”
― Gareth Southgate
“I’m committed to England, simple as that. I don’t need to hedge my bets in keeping doors open or keeping things alive.”
― Gareth Southgate
“My sole focus is producing the best team possible for England.”
― Gareth Southgate
“My kids don’t think, for one minute, about where people are born, what language they speak, what colour they are. There’s an innocence about young people that is only influenced by older people.”
― Gareth Southgate
“I’m not the authority on the subject. I’m a middle-aged white guy speaking about racism. I’m just finding it a really difficult subject to broach.”
― Gareth Southgate
“I manage every player as well as I possibly can, regardless of which club they’re from, what their roots are.”
― Gareth Southgate
“I want my players to enjoy playing football and not be scarred by the experiences.”
― Gareth Southgate
“When you’re a leader and a manager, you have to make decisions which are right for your group to achieve the primary objective. Sometimes those decisions will be criticised.”
― Gareth Southgate
“Sometimes you have to make decisions for the bigger picture.”
― Gareth Southgate
“I think it’s always difficult to go against people with big match experience in finals.”
― Gareth Southgate
“If you keep always doing what you’ve always done, you get the same results.”
― Gareth Southgate
“Looking at the team sheets, you’re never quite sure one weekend to the next who’s going to be in a team and who isn’t.”
― Gareth Southgate
“For me, it is all about the bigger picture and what is right for England. I haven’t enjoyed watching us play in all our games, but away in Germany, against Spain and Germany at home, I’ve enjoyed the performance.”
― Gareth Southgate
“Very often, you can go into one game and do really well, and then you have to find that level of performance so quickly again.”
― Gareth Southgate
“If we want to be a top team, we can’t get to 3-0 and suddenly decide not to play without the ball. We have to play with intelligence right through the game.”
― Gareth Southgate
“We want to win every game of football we go into. I don’t know how we would go into a game not wanting to win and not wanting to play well.”
― Gareth Southgate
“I’ve got to think through all of those things – competition for places, players who need match minutes, and keeping the unity of the squad.”
― Gareth Southgate
“Good teams, whatever the circumstances or the atmosphere or the pitch, find a way of playing.”
― Gareth Southgate
“I don’t think, when you are involved with England, you can ever write any game or tournament off – that wouldn’t be acceptable.”
― Gareth Southgate
“I expect all the players, even the younger ones, to show leadership in their own way.”
― Gareth Southgate
“You’re always loath to take a player off of his ability.”
― Gareth Southgate
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