Neil Warnock has hailed the impact Gareth Southgate has made as England boss and believes they could win a tournament in the future under his tutelage.
Southgate guided England to the semi-finals of the 2018 World Cup, with the Three Lions also securing a easy passageway through to next summer’s postponed European Championship having won seven of their eight group matches and scoring an impressive 37 goals along the way.
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However, their hopes of qualifying for the Nations League finals disappeared following a 2-0 defeat against Belgium on Sunday night.
They followed that up with a 4-0 victory over Iceland on Wednesday night, with Manchester City’s Phil Foden grabbing a brace in the Wembley rout.
And Middlesbrough boss Warnock has been delighted with what he’s seen from Southgate since taking over the reins in 2016 – admitting he never enjoyed watching England in action prior to then.
“I don’t think anybody could have done a better job than Gareth Southgate,” he told talkSPORT Breakfast.
“I never enjoyed watching England [in the past]. What he’s done is given young lads a chance.
“Another manager would not have given as many young lads an opportunity. It might not be in this tournament, but if he’s brave enough in the next couple of years to play these lads together and if they get a bad result don’t worry about the public, just get on with it.
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“I think we’ve got a great squad of players, the best I’ve seen for many, many years. It’s shown about being braving enough to go with it and educating the full-backs to defend more.”
Southgate has, however, been criticised for his perceived defensive set-up – with talkSPORT’s Jamie O’Hara among those.
The former Tottenham midfielder and current Billericay Town boss wants to see England line up in a 4-3-3 formation in order to utilise more of their attacking talent – something Warnock was in agreement with.
He explained: “I think all managers, not just Gareth, get paranoid about their own weaknesses and forget about your strengths. You forget about what other managers are thinking about playing you.
“I think they play five at the back because you’re not sure you’re centre halves are good enough, not [thinking] about any other position.
“I think when you play five at the back you’re worried about top class players coming up against a four, and you use an extra player as a precaution.
“Sometimes that backfires on you, you need that extra player. I’d like to see England play 4-3-3, I think they’ve got the players [to do that] now.
“I don’t think he’ll do that against Croatia, because it’s [having] that safety valve.”
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