Tribal Football

England coach Southgate defends Euros form: Our identity is clear

England coach Southgate defends Euros form: Our identity is clear
England coach Southgate defends Euros form: Our identity is clear
England coach Southgate defends Euros form: Our identity is clearAction Plus
England coach Gareth Southgate has pressed the reset button on their Euro 2024 campaign.

The beleaguered manager has held talks with his players as they attempt to right the ship.

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After a draw against Denmark and a narrow win over Serbia in their first two games, England need a result against Slovenia to guarantee progressing as one of the top two teams.

Southgate said: “Our identity has been pretty clear. We haven’t quite seen that in the first couple of games and there was a need to have a reset button and have open and honest conversations.

‌“We reflect as a coaching team. The players are reflective. So nobody has been ducking anything this week, nobody has been alone in their thoughts.

“It’s a real collective because we’re all on the same page. That allows us to assess where we were and how we need to progress in the same direction.

‌"What we've talked about is performance. We know that the results have put us in a strong position, but we want to play better as a team. You've got to move away from the emotion and focus on how we get better performances.

‌“That’s our job as a coaching staff, where we really have to get the focus right. With the players, there's always going to be a lot of emotion around tournament football, but the process of building a team is to prepare, play, reflect, learn, improve and that's what we've got to do.

“There’s of course a lot of other things involved in pressing a team, but when you boil it down, you've got to keep looking for improvement and seeking perfection, which you're never going to get. But we know our performances have to be at a better level - and completely understand the reaction to that."