Southgate admits clubs will put pressure on players ahead of Iceland match

Gareth Southgate has admitted that he will find a lot about this England squad ahead of the game against Iceland as players will likely come under pressure from their clubs not to be involved in a dead-rubber contest.

England’s 2-0 loss against Belgium means that their hopes of qualifying for the Nations League semi-finals are now over.

Harry Kane and Eric Dier both played all ninety minutes against the Belgians while Harry Winks came on as a substitute at half-time.

Jose Mourinho will likely be hoping that the trio would be rested for Wednesday’s Nations League clash at Wembley, considering Tottenham have a crucial Premier League fixture against Manchester City coming up on Saturday evening.

The Portuguese took to Instagram yesterday to hit out at the international schedule once more, criticising friendly matches and coronavirus security.

However, Southgate warned the players that they will be playing for their future place in the squad and urged them to show that they take pride in representing their country.

When asked about the Iceland clash, the Three Lions boss told The Evening Standard: “It’s still a game that’s an opportunity for people to cement a place in the team or in the squad.

“We’ll find out a lot now because for sure there’ll be a lot of pressure from some clubs on their own players. That’s what we live with consistently.

“But we’ve got players that want to play for England, we have pride in the way we play and we want to finish the group well. The performance last night was excellent, the players pushed until the 93rd minute and I couldn’t be prouder of them doing that.

“So we have players that want the opportunity to play. We need to freshen the team a little bit, but we’ll have to assess that over the next couple of days.”

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