Gareth Southgate says it is his duty to protect Harry Maguire after the abuse of the defender hit new heights during England’s 3-1 friendly win over Scotland last month.
England’s manager, who believes much of it has been driven by social media, made clear that he does not regret criticising the media for whipping up a storm that led to Scotland fans mocking Maguire at Hampden Park. Maguire, who has become a figure of fun since falling out of favour at Manchester United, has always had Southgate’s support and he felt it again after briefly putting his side under pressure with an unfortunate own goal.
Southgate did not hide his feelings, calling the treatment of Maguire a “joke” and criticising the media for making it worse. The emotions were genuine. Southgate has refused to drop Maguire, even though he is yet to start a league game for United this season, and has named the centre-back in his squad for England’s friendly against Australia on Friday and Euro 2024 qualifier against Italy.
“It is the responsibility of a coach to protect their players,” Southgate said. “He is treated in a strange way. United lost a game in midweek and I saw a headline in a paper about players and pictures of players driving in. Maguire is one of the pictures they used driving in and he didn’t play in the game. That is the sort of unconscious thing going on.
“That is what I was trying to highlight. I had my say. It is done. He has been an important player for us, he still is an important player for us. We have competition for places and we are looking at young centre-backs and different centre-backs. But at various moments as a coach your job is to protect your players.
“You can talk to the group as a manager but your actions are going to speak louder. When I criticised I said commentators and pundits. I didn’t put social media into that. Therefore, commentators and pundits are going to come for me. But that wasn’t important. The important thing was the players – especially the ones who have been with us for a long time. They have known me long enough and at certain times need to feel that support.”
Southgate considered whether the treatment of Maguire was a modern phenomenon. “We obviously haven’t had social media in the past, so there’s a different dynamic, which then fuels other media responses,” he said. “As I said at the time I’ve not known something quite like this but we are where we are.”
Southgate plans to visit Saudi Arabia to watch Jordan Henderson play for Al-Ettifaq. “His physical data is fine,” he said. “The games are not at the same intensity as here. The heat is part of that. There are two or three drinks breaks per game, which is an indication of the climate, and that his having an impact on how teams play.
“It is a situation we are tracking closely. I will go out and watch games. But we get all his games the same way we get everybody else’s. That’s a longer trip and in these first couple of months we’ve felt it more important to see as many games live as we can by getting around our country more. But as time moves on, we’ll get to more of the Milans, the Madrids and the Bayern Munichs, as well as out to see Hendo.”
Southgate was asked whether Jude Bellingham, who scored a sensational goal during Real Madrid’s win over Napoli on Tuesday, was the best player in the world at the moment. “It’s not a stupid question,” he said.
“I haven’t seen everybody and studied everybody playing. All I can say is he’s at one of the biggest clubs in the world, arguably the biggest, and he’s playing exceptionally well. He’s currently the matchwinner for them so he’s in a brilliant place.”
