Gareth Southgate held an impromptu meeting with his England squad on Tuesday night in response to the ‘bad’ press surrounding their Euro 2024 campaign.
The Three Lions continue their European Championships with a clash against Denmark on Thursday evening, knowing that victory would book their place in the knockout stage.
They currently top Group C following a 1-0 win over Serbia last Sunday but their performance was underwhelming and there was plenty of criticism aimed at Southgate’s tactics and certain players.
In particularly, much has been made of the performances of Phil Foden and Trent Alexander-Arnold, with calls for the pair to be either dropped or repositioned, though Southgate is set to name the same XI against Denmark.
As a result, the England manager held a ‘special meeting’ with his 26 players to discuss the matter and urge them to shut out all external noise.
‘There’s going to be a narrative around a player, a couple of players, after every England game,’ Southgate said in his pre-match press conference.
‘This is a different world to the one you experience at clubs. The players as a collective recognise that now after the last couple of days.
‘We talked with them about it. It’s very rare at their club they’d win a game and experience what they’ve experienced over the last couple of days.
‘I have to make sure I can guide them through that, let them understand it and recognise it’s the reality of our world but that we shouldn’t be thrown off track by it. We’re in a good position, we know we want to play better, there are a lot of things we did really well and we move towards tomorrow’s game.’
12 of his 26 strong squad are at their first major tournament and need this education and can count of the lessons learnt by the more experienced members of the team.
This includes vice-captain Kyle Walker, who revealed a bit more of what was said in the meeting: ‘He had a brief talk with us last night, and normally there are 20 other Premier League teams to write about and fill columns about.
‘Now all eyes are on us boys over here representing our country and we are all coming together as one.
‘So obviously there is going to be a massive scrutiny in certain performances or certain things we do, but I think we cannot take away that we came away from there with three points on the board, a clean sheet and in a good stead for this game against Denmark.
‘I don’t look at anything. Because I feel I’m in here and this is the only little bubble. I feel when you concentrate not on two games or three games time but just one game at a time, I feel that’s when you get the best out of each other.
‘When you start listening to outside noise, or good press and bad press, it affects different people in different ways.
‘If you were to write good things or bad things about me, if I don’t read it I don’t react and don’t change my opinion on what I’m going to approach a game like. I approach a game as a team game, I approach a game to go and win the game at all costs, and that’s all I care about really.’