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Ian Wright has insisted there is ‘something not right’ with England manager Gareth Southgate.
Southgate and his England side are preparing for their Euro 2024 match against Slovakia on Sunday afternoon, having topped their group after their first three games of the tournament.
However, it has not all been smooth sailing. A win over Serbia was followed by draws against Denmark and Slovenia, with fans left frustrated by the Three Lions’ performances in the two matches.
After the match against Slovenia, fans booed the team off the pitch in Cologne and threw plastic projectiles in the direction of Southgate, who continued to act defiantly and cheer on the fans on the pitch.
However, his time as England boss could be coming to an end, and Wright has now had his say about his recent behaviour.
“I think so,” Wright said on the latest episode of Stick to Football: The Overlap Special, brought to you by Sky betwhen asked if Southgate felt from the fans and the media that his time as England manager was over. ‘You can see something about him in his interviews.
“When you look at Gareth before this tournament, you look at him and his attitude, he was very confident. When he talks to people and looks at reporters, there is an authority in what he says, and he is confident in what he says.
‘Now you hear him say, “Something is very wrong,” and he does this as he speaks and looks down and you can see he’s thinking about something else – there’s something wrong with him and I really feel for him because I think he’s taken on so much with what he’s had to do as England manager and he’s changed so many different things culturally and politically.”
Southgate has taken England the closest to a major trophy under his reign since 1966. He lost the final of the 2021 European Championship on penalties and reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 2018.
The Three Lions are on the favorable side of the draw this time in Germany and will certainly avoid countries such as France, Germany, Spain and Portugal until the final.
However, expectations and the atmosphere around the team from outside are gloomy due to the poor performances against Denmark and Slovenia.
Southgate has admitted he is determined to block out the noise and walked past the plastic rockets on Tuesday as they were thrown from the stands onto the pitch.
“I understand,” he said. ‘I’m not going to shy away from it.
‘The most important thing is that we stay with the team. I understand the story being told to me. That’s better for the team than having it told to them, but it creates an unusual environment to operate in.”
He later admitted that he felt the “world is different from his side” because of his own doing.
Captain Harry Kane, meanwhile, said: “I know there were some things after the match but the atmosphere was unbelievable. 99 percent of fans do what they always do. They sing, they drive us forward. I know the fans at home watching in the pubs and pushing us along. They want us to be successful
‘There will always be one or two who go a bit too far, but that’s football, that’s life. We’ve all been around long enough to be a part of that. From our point of view I would say keep doing what they are doing. We know they have our backs.
“They know that we give everything, that we put everything on the line to be successful. From that point of view, nothing has changed.”