England players have thrown their full weight of support behind Gareth Southgate after admitting surprise at the strength of criticism they received from Gary Lineker.
BBC presenter Lineker, on his The Rest Is Football podcast, had described the draw against Denmark as “s—” and on Saturday branded Southgate’s comments over struggling to replace Kalvin Phillips as “insulting” and “wrong”.
The England manager had claimed England “don’t have a natural replacement for Phillips”, with Lineker saying the comments were unfair on midfielders Kobbie Mainoo and Adam Wharton.
Southgate has banned himself from looking at media during the finals, while Jarrod Bowen admitted he was shocked at the language used by Lineker, who played in three major tournaments for England and is the country’s fourth highest goalscorer.
“I didn’t know it was as strong as that. I thought his podcast might be a little bit more ‘PG’,” said Bowen. “For myself on socials, I only saw when I first got into the squad and there were a lot of eyebrows raised. For me that was one thing to go ‘Right, I’m not going to have a look any more’.
“They’re more than entitled to speak about the games. They’ve played for their country, they’ve played at a high level. It’s a major competition for our country. It’s got everyone speaking.
“We’re sat here with four points. There’s a lot of noise, a lot of uproar, as if we’re sat here with two defeats and bottom of the table. But the reality is we’re top of the table with lots of confidence going into the last group game where we know we need to win.”
Southgate’s squad returned to full training on Saturday at their Spa & GolfResort Weimarer Land base after one day warming down from the Denmark draw, with those less involved in the two Group C games doing more work in small-sided games.
The England manager, who is considering changes for Tuesday’s clash against Slovenia, has faced criticism from pundits over his tactics and his players failing to press effectively during the win over Serbia and against the Danes.
But Jordan Pickford and Kieran Trippier are among the senior players who have given their backing to the manager. Southgate and captain Harry Kane addressed the squad in the dressing room at Waldstadion on Thursday and urged players not to panic as tournaments will be a “rollercoaster”.
“Everyone is behind the manager,” said Pickford. “Everything we do in training and the meetings we have he delivers them brilliantly for us and gets us the right game plan. We weren’t perfect against Denmark, but that is a good feeling because we know we can improve. We know we have more to give in each game so to be on four points with a lot of improvement to come isn’t a bad feeling.
“The manager always says that you are going to have a rollercoaster in tournament football, there will be high days and low days, but we got a point against Denmark, we are top of the group and there is no panic. We have to enjoy the pressure, enjoy the pressure of the games.”
Southgate’s comments about Phillips came after experimenting with Trent Alexander-Arnold in midfield over the last year and also picking Wharton and Mainoo for the squad, which sparked a response from Lineker.