Gareth Southgate has been at pains to ensure his young England side are in the right frame of mind following their 1-0 opening day defeat to Portugal at the European Under-21 Championship and his efforts received an unexpected boost on Saturday with comments from the Sweden defender Ludwig Augustinsson about his team.
The FC Copenhagen full-back told the Swedish media: “A little overrated, I think they are sometimes. Some players go for such sick amounts of money in England and is a bit more expensive than what they are worth. To take an example, Germany is a much better squad. We’ll see tomorrow how good they are.”
Southgate has not missed the chance to help fire his side up. “It’s been posted next to the meal room,” said the England coach, whose side take on Sweden at Olomouc’s Andruv Stadium on Sunday. “Unfortunately it doesn’t do my job for me, but it’s always interesting when the opposition make comments about your players.”
A defeat for England could mean they exit the competition after two games – and they are on a 10-match winless run in normal time at the finals – but the squad is confident that Augustinsson can be proved wrong.
The midfielder Nathan Redmond said: “We came down the lunch and saw it posted outside the meal room. It was a good topic for discussion. We’re confident in what we can do and know what we can do.”
Southgate will be without his backup up goalkeeper Jonathan Bond after the Watford player rolled his foot in training. He joins John Stones, who has concussion, on the sidelines, while Saido Berahino has gone home with a knee injury. The coach, though, believes those setbacks will not curtail his side’s positive approach.
“The other day [against Portugal] we had two attacking full-backs, two wingers, two attacking midfield players and a centre-forward,” he said. “We only have one way of playing. We’re an attacking team, we’re one of the top scorers in qualifying and that was our first game in 18 we didn’t score. We’re not going to rip up everything we’ve been doing after one defeat.”
Southgate also dismissed claims that England’s representative sides are divided along racial lines after a picture was published showing members of the England Under-20s squad eating at two separate tables, one populated by black players and the other by white. “It’s quite clear from my experience of England junior teams that there is no issue,’’ said Southgate. “It was a picture that was unrepresentative of what goes on in our development teams. Anyone who’s seen this [Under-21] group of players and staff mix over the last two years or who’s been around the hotel or around the training ground for the last two weeks will see the realities of the situation.”
