England vs Scotland: Gareth Southgate schooling his young Lions on how they really must rock the Scots
Interim England boss demands confidence - not arrogance - at he prepares for Friday night's World Cup qualifier at Wembley
IN his own understated manner, Gareth Southgate definitely appreciates the meaning of England v Scotland.
He remembers annual meetings between the auld enemies, he can dine out on stories of Gazza in Euro 96 and he played when there were Scotsmen in every major English dressing room.
When Angus Gunn — son of former Scottish keeper Bryan — played a blinder for his England Under-21s in September and he was asked whether the kid might end up playing for Scotland, Southgate wondered aloud: “Why would anybody ever want to do that?”
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Yesterday, he was told (wrongly) that Andy Murray would be in Scotland’s dressing room to deliver some sort of Mel Gibson-style pre-match battle cry to his nation’s footballers.
“Unless he’s playing at left-back, he won’t affect the game,” quipped Southgate.
Yet England’s interim boss has had to drill the significance of the oldest international fixture into a generation of players who know little about it.
Meanwhile, Gordon Strachan’s Scotland — well-stocked with Championship players and technically inferior to the English — will instinctively know what tonight’s World Cup qualifier means.
They may be dressed in pink, like wolves in sheep’s clothing, but they will head on to the Wembley turf smelling the blood of Englishmen.
They have been brought up to believe that the English are arrogant swines and that nothing is sweeter than beating them.
England, meanwhile, have been holding team meetings about the definitions of confidence and arrogance — Southgate wants the former and not the latter — seemingly tying themselves in knots about how they’re supposed to act.
As Englishmen often do.
It took an Australian, Eddie Jones, to take over England’s rugby union team and state that England’s sportsmen are not arrogant enough. That they spend too much time trying to get the rest of the world to like them. When, frankly, no one ever will.
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And while he doesn’t like ‘arrogance’ Southgate agreed with Jones that England are often too nicey-nicey.
“Yes,” he said, “the classic example would be last year where Harry Kane nearly got decapitated against Portugal and tried to keep going. A lot of feedback would be: ‘It’s a joke you’re telling him to get the other player sent off. It’s not British’.
“At the right moment, I’d do the right thing. But we want to win. I don’t encourage players to cheat. But if somebody fouls us and it should be a yellow card, sometimes you have to make sure that decision is taken.
“If a player is kicked and is hurt, just to bounce up and shake hands . . . I don’t know if that’s the rules the rest of the world are playing by.
“I think we should be more streetwise generally. I know that won’t be a popular opinion but I’m in a professional sport.
“I don’t encourage cheating or diving but there are moments when you’ve got to smell what the right thing is.
“I’ve been involved in matches like (against Argentina) in Saint Etienne in ’98 where those things have swung the game. Then nobody turns around and says: ‘Oh well, we did the right thing, what a shame’.”
On Friday night England may need to discover some of that mongrel spirit. If their quality doesn’t tell — as it did when Roy Hodgson’s England won 3-1 at Celtic Park in a friendly two years ago — they may need to scrap it out toe-to-toe with opponents who won’t lack for desire.
Perhaps that is one reason why Southgate has recalled Wayne Rooney, who was massively motivated even for that friendly two years ago.
Southgate did not want to discuss his own future — though he will be confirmed in permanent command unless England lose.
But he tossed in a couple of coded messages. He spelled out his knowledge of England’s younger players at age-group level. And he mentioned that England’s players had struggled having three managers in the previous three international breaks.
Asked whether the England team were struggling for relevance in an era of club dominance, he claimed this fixture could restore some lustre.
He said: “Everybody will be watching. It’s the sort of game that captures the imagination.
“If you look at the viewing figures from England matches compared to league matches, they’re incomparable.
“I respect everybody’s feel of their club but England is very, very special.”
And to Strachan’s men, beating England would be very, very special indeed.