Alan Pardew believes Gareth Southgate can bring the best out of England’s players and has urged his former Crystal Palace team-mate to prove he has “the X factor” to make his mark with the national team over his four-game interim stewardship.
Southgate, who has stepped up from the Under-21s following Sam Allardyce’s departure this week, will name his first senior squad on Sunday evening for the World Cup qualifiers against Malta and Slovenia next month.
The 45‑year‑old, who is to retain Wayne Rooney as his captain, will also oversee the games against Scotland and Spain next month, giving the Football Association much-needed time to identify and secure a long-term appointment ahead of the resumption of the qualifying campaign in March.
Yet, while Southgate has admitted he lacks the experience to fill the role on a full-time basis, there is an opportunity to be grasped if he impresses and, effectively, convinces himself he can do the job. He has received support from within the game, with his candidacy championed by the Wales manager, Chris Coleman, another former team-mate at Selhurst Park, and Pardew, who had appeared to be a potential rival for the position.
“The FA have a good manager in charge in Gareth. He has been through the system and knows the players coming through,” said Pardew, who played with Southgate, a youth-team graduate, at Palace under Steve Coppell in 1990 and 1991. “I have respect for him as a player, a coach and as a manager. I played with him a few times after Steve had fast-tracked him in and he was a player who was always keen to learn.
“He had an intelligence that was above mine and the other players’. He had something like eight O-Levels which, at that time, was astonishing, especially for us who went to comprehensive schools and the mayhem they were. In all his career he has always handled himself and had an intelligence to grow as a player. He wasn’t that good a player, really. I can say that because I’m a friend. But it was his intelligence that made him an England international and it is that same intelligence he will bring to the managerial role.”
Southgate’s only spell as a club manager, with Middlesbrough, ended in 2009 but he has made his mark at the FA with the Under-21s. “The one thing you have to ask about top managers is: is there an X Factor there when the game is tight?” Pardew said. “Can he make the right substitution, the right call? Can he tactically set a team up at that level? He has four games to try and show he can and I hope he does. He can certainly relate to players, he can speak their language. He understands their issues, and he understands the issues around the England team for sure because he has that experience. He can pass that on.
“There are not many England internationals who have done all the badges on the coaching side. Some of them are on the television saying they want to be England manager and they haven’t done a coaching badge. Gareth is a coach in his own right, he could coach anywhere in the world, and I think he has all the attributes needed.
“Gareth has experienced tournament football, he understands the chain of command at the FA and he isn’t ‘too nice’. He has a little streak in him. It doesn’t come out often but you play tennis against him. The players he knows from the juniors will trust him straight away. Players want to know the manager has their back. They don’t have to worry about that with him. I really hope he does well.”
Those sentiments were echoed by Coleman, who featured regularly alongside Southgate in the Palace team until the latter was sold to Aston Villa in 1995. “Out of all of us, he was the one I thought would become a manager,” said the Wales coach. “He is his own man, strong mentally, sensible and intelligent and serious about football. Will it work out? I don’t know. He already said he didn’t want the job before Sam got it. But I said that when I got given the Fulham job for five games. Once I had a taste of it, I did. That will be the acid test for Gareth. He is either going to love it, or realise ’no, it’s not for me’. He will be judged on results.”
Pardew, the most experienced English club manager currently coaching in the Premier League, was critical of the FA for not offering potential candidates for the position an opportunity to attend sessions at St George’s Park to observe the national team at work. “They keep talking about having a system,” he added. “I have a little criticism that surfaced in the summer when the job came up. Myself, Eddie Howe or any English manager as far as I’m aware ... we’ve never been invited to England as a guest. I think we should be.
“We should understand what goes on at press conferences for England and behind the scenes, otherwise how are we going to get experience? Eddie is at Bournemouth and I’m at Crystal Palace. We are not at Manchester United or top clubs. International experience is very difficult [to get] – I have got into Europe twice, so you could easily put against my name that I lack international experience. But how am I going to get it? I have got to jump through hoops to get this club into Europe, so that is an error the FA should look at.”
