Gareth Southgate should forget about Manchester United. He’s better off staying with England, here’s why…

England will be the team to beat at this summer’s European Championships and if I were to advise Gareth Southgate amid rumors that he could be Manchester United’s next manager, I would say sit tight.

This England side has at least two more tournaments in store – considering their age – and Gareth should stick around and enjoy the fruits of that.

He has been extremely lucky in the way he got the job following the departure of Sam Allardyce and has benefited from the very timely development of this very talented English group.

As he knows well from his time at Middlesbrough, managing a club with the day-to-day demands is a very different task.

Gareth is non-confrontational; he has a safe image, so that will appeal to some. But look at the three most successful managers in the Premier League: Pep Guardiola, Jurgen Klopp and Mikel Arteta: they are all highly emotional, passionate characters who wear their hearts on their sleeves. That’s not Gareth. Of course there is more than one way to do a job, but United’s job, when it comes up, requires great character.

Bigger, more experienced managers, such as Louis van Gaal and Jose Mourinho, have mastered it quite well but ultimately failed, while little has improved under the very different approach of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Erik ten Hag.

As I’ve said before, whoever takes that job needs to get the recruitment in order first. Find top players and they don’t have to be told twice, they will do the work for you. I was part of such a dressing room as a player at Liverpool and I was part of that dressing room as a manager at Rangers.

Certainly there is a link between Dan Ashworth, who joins United as technical director, and Gareth, but is that enough? No, if England win the European Championship, it would be best for him to stay where he is.

Gareth had the chance to look at some more good prospects against Brazil with Jarrad Branthwaite and Kobbie Mainoo on Saturday evening.

If they start or get through, I expect them to handle it well. Firstly, because they are both talented young footballers. And secondly, it’s a friendly competition and I don’t value friendlies.

At Liverpool, the management openly encouraged us to miss these kinds of games. I got 54 caps for Scotland and could have won many more, but I missed the opportunity to play meaningless friendlies. That stuck with me as a manager. If you ever went to watch a player in such a match, it was usually a waste of time. The players weren’t really into it and you learned very little.

There is a lot of fuss surrounding preparing for an international debut and it is generally true that the higher up you go in football your thought process should be quicker, your touch should be better and you should never give the ball away cheaply, but in a friendly competition. process is always one meter behind.

I made my international debut in a friendly against East Germany in 1974. It was special to pull on the Scotland shirt, but that first game wasn’t something I was too worried about. My goal was just to win, I wasn’t nervous. We knew very little about East Germany and I was blessed with confidence, so it wasn’t something I was too concerned about.

Likewise, Brazil need not fear Branthwaite and Mainoo. They are both very good footballers, athletic and able to take the ball in tight spaces. They are willing to take a pass over those who would like to hand over responsibility.

To underline my point, when you’re standing in the tunnel waiting to get out, there are two types of players: the footballer who hopes to get through 90 minutes without making a mistake, and the real footballer who says, ‘I can it not’. waiting to go out and be a difference today.” Branthwaite and Mainoo are the last. They both have bright futures that Gareth Southgate can count on.

Getting punished by Zico for a 2am burger!

There were two players I could never get close to in my career: one was England’s World Cup winner Alan Ball, the other was Zico, the great Brazilian.

When I played for Scotland I had what you might call the misfortune of playing against Brazil in 1982, probably the best side not to win the World Cup.

It was 84 degrees in Seville, it was an evening kickoff but the sun was still shining. We went outside for our warm-up and came back sweaty. We went back to the locker rooms to cool down and then came out for the kick-off and the national anthems. Standing next to the referee, I look down the line at our team and see several bodies, some extremely white, some with red hair and all soaked in sweat. It seemed like we had just finished the game. I turned in the other direction, towards Socrates, Brazil’s captain, and saw a row of tanned, immaculate individuals who looked as if they had just stepped out of the window of Marks and Spencer… and not a drop of sweat on them. I knew we were going to have a difficult evening.

David Narey then made the mistake of scoring first which upset them and they beat us 4-1. I played against some really great Brazilians that day and one of them was Zico, who scored their first goal and pulled the strings.

I had had experience of him months earlier when he was man of the match for his club Flamengo against Liverpool in what was known as the Intercontinental Cup.

We didn’t take it as seriously at the time as we do now and certainly not.

We had an extremely pleasant 16 hour flight to Tokyo via Anchorage, Alaska, so when we arrived we weren’t in the best of conditions.

The night before the match I share a room with Kenny Dalglish as usual when I wake up hungry at 2am. Kenny felt the same, so we order hamburger and fries and strangely enough we can’t sleep. I look out the window and see very bright lights, which on closer inspection is a driving range. Kenny loves to play golf, so he needed little encouragement. We go to the other side and get ready to hit some balls when the next minute we hear some noisy English voices. It was the rest of the team. They couldn’t sleep either and brought over a few beers. It was all in good fun, but it didn’t help us too much later that afternoon when Zico and Co came out 3-0 winners.

Klopp’s breakout shows the demands placed on top managers

That trigger moment struck Jurgen Klopp last weekend and he gave a Danish journalist his five days of fame.

As a manager, I’ve been there too many times to be able to say when that one question pushes the wrong button for you and you say something you regret.

It’s part of the game, journalists asking you questions to get a response and make headlines while you struggle with emotions – it’s set up perfectly for them.

It can just be the way something is phrased that startles you and Jurgen is said to have been frustrated at the way his Liverpool team let Manchester United, their biggest rivals, off the hook in a hugely important FA Cup tie. It would all have been very raw if he was questioned about his side’s lack of intensity.

What you didn’t see immediately after his blast was Jurgen then doing a completely calm TV interview with Nedum Onuoha and being magnanimous enough to congratulate United’s Amad Diallo on his winning goal.

There are enormous demands on top managers to deliver post-match interview after interview, sometimes as many as ten. That is the price stated on the ticket. But all the noise surrounding the incident is a mountain from a molehill.

Jurgen is a very emotional man, that is in his character. It’s a big reason why he’s loved so much and a big reason why he’ll be missed when he goes this summer.