England head coach Gareth Southgate has revealed that he would check the fitness of Phil Foden whether he is fit for selection on Tuesday against Hungary in the Nations League.
The Manchester City attacker has missed England’s last three games in the Nations because of COVID-19. the PFA young player of the season returned to training last week but did not take part in England’s stalemate against Italy on Saturday.
England is winless in their last three nations League games and is bottom in their group. Gareth Southgate and his teammate will hope for a better result against Hungary on Tuesday.
What did Gareth Southgate say?
Speaking to reporters ahead of Tuesday’s encounter with Hungary, the England head coach said: “We’ve got to chat with our physical performance guys and medical team.
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“Phil’s back into training but there’s a reality of how much conditioning he’s had over the last three weeks and what our expectation of him could be of him so we’ll do that as the day progresses.”
Gareth Southgate added: “We have one or two bumps and bruises, and they will be checked after training, but we had everyone on the training pitch so that was a good sign.
“We want to win the game but throughout this period I have different objectives I’m trying to achieve. We have fresh players, and the squad is important.
“There are some things we want and need to see.
“We have a different tactical challenge tomorrow and lots of teams are finding things difficult against Hungary – they’re a good side.
“This group has been incredible, their mentality, their desire to play for England and work every day on the training pitch to get better we’re very fortunate to have a group as dedicated as we have.”
Meanwhile, Gareth Southgate claims to call players’ wives and girlfriends “WAG” disrespectful.
Southgate said: “I’d be surprised if the group of players we’ve got would have interest in that,” Southgate said. “They’ve wanted to focus on football. The focus in Russia and last summer was all about the players and everything that they do. We’ve never had any issues.
“We like to involve the families, we think it’s important that the players’ partners… I think the term ‘WAGs’ is quite disrespectful really. It’s their partners and family, so I don’t like the term. We want them to feel welcome.”
Gareth Southgate also stressed the importance of having the families of the players around them.
Gareth Southgate continued: “We invited them into the hotel when we could in Russia: mums, dad, and kids. It’s a great feeling when you get the kids in especially, it changes the dynamic in the hotel, we couldn’t do that last year because of COVID.
“It’s one big family. Everybody recognizes that part of what we do has been very good over the past couple of years.”
