Players being pressured into call-ups

Gareth Southgate spoke ahead of the final Nations League game against Iceland at Wembley tonight.

He spoke about the gruelling schedule the players have to deal with due to Covid-19 this year. Many Club mangers have spoken out against this including Pep Guardiola and Jürgen Klopp speaking out.

With 38 weeks of football in 9 months plus domestic and International breaks, the players will go through the hardest season yet. Southgate went on to say “that the players want to play for England”. The England Boss also went on to say that the “players are under huge pressure” and “how difficult the situation is”. Southgate like other mangers in the game are clearly frustrated by how many games the players have to play this year due to the pandemic.

Southgate also made a comment on how times have changed. "Four years ago I started thinking, 'I'd better be careful of that.'" It shows how different this season is to previous ones. England’s recent form is 1 win from 2 games but with a lot of injuries in the past 2 games just backs up the argument Southgate and many more are making.

He also stated that. “Everybody is inevitably going to fight their own corner”. Showing everyone is in the same situation and will try and protect their own players.