Luke Shaw says England’s players want to keep working with Gareth Southgate even if their World Cup dream is ended by France on Saturday.
Southgate is under contract until 2024, and the Football Association (FA) would like him to stay on until after Euro 2024, but there has been speculation he could leave the job after the World Cup. Mauricio Pochettino, Thomas Tuchel and Southgate’s assistant Steve Holland have all been mooted as possible replacements.
Shaw is braced for speculation over Southgate’s future if England lose to France, but says the squad want him to stay, and he believes they can still find “another gear” at the World Cup as they prepare for Saturday’s quarter-final.
“Of course we want to keep working with him,” said the left-back. “The type of success he has brought has not been seen for many years. I understand we haven’t won [anything], and we’re disappointed with that, but we’re going in the right direction and things are really looking up.
“Of course there’s going to be speculation if we don’t win on Saturday, but we don’t want to speak like that and be negative. We’re confident and we’ll wait and see until after the game.”
Southgate was booed by supporters during this season’s Nations League campaign, but England’s performances in Qatar have all but ended criticism of the manager.
“Definitely leading into this tournament, the way things have gone, he hasn’t got the credit he deserves,” Shaw added. “If you look at our past tournament experiences, the past two tournaments have obviously been the best in years, for a very long time.
“A few bad performances were not solely down to him, they were down to us as players, and got him some unfair criticism. They shouldn’t have been solely blamed on him. This tournament, we’re top scorers, we still have another gear to go up to, to get better and better. The signs are good and there should be no doubt about him at all.”
Southgate must decide whether to stick with the side that beat Senegal or sacrifice a midfielder and switch to a back-five to deal with the threat of Kylian Mbappe.
Meanwhile, Harry Kane has said England do not fear France and insists the squad have come to Qatar to go “all the way”.
“When we look back to 2018, [reaching the semi-finals in Russia] was probably further than anyone thought we would go,” said the captain. “Since then, getting to a Euro final and where we are now, we expected to be here. The quarter-final isn’t what we’ve come here for. We’ve come here to go all the way.”
