Gareth Southgate has suggested that uniting the Liverpool and Tottenham players after their meeting in the Champions League final will be a test.
Liverpool trio Joe Gomez, Jordan Henderson and Trent Alexander-Arnold will all link up with Tottenham’s English players for England’s Nations League semi-final with the Netherlands, which takes place just five days after the Champions League final in Madrid.
Southgate revealed that he and his fellow coaches will have to make a swift assessment of the Liverpool and Tottenham players, and is preparing to help the players on the losing side in the Champions League final recover mentally for England’s fixture.
“We have got to make a quick but accurate assessment on where they are over those few days. It will be a very individual thing having played in such a big game,” Southgate said as quoted by BBC Sport.
“That will be the first time we have experienced that. We had Jordan and Trent come into camp last year on the back of a big disappointment and that wasn’t straightforward for them.”
“So, somebody is going to come in in that frame of mind unfortunately. It is a unique situation. I guess the Spanish manager would have had that over a period of time in the past [two of the last five finals have been all-Spanish] and there will be others that have had to do deal with it.”
OPINION
It will be very interesting to see what happens in the Champions League final with the English players in both the respective Liverpool and Tottenham sides. It could be as Southgate acknowledges a challenge to get those players to unite under the same squad again, after being involved in such a highly competitive game as the Champions League final. It will also be interesting to see how the English players on the losing side of the Champions League final will manage to mentally prepare for their involvement in England’s Nations League matches. Liverpool duo Henderson and Alexander-Arnold experienced that disappointment last season after losing the Champions League final to Real Madrid, but they both recovered very well helping England reach the World Cup semi-finals in Russia. Reds supporters will be hoping that those players will not have to recover mentally this time around, as they hope Liverpool can end the season by winning the Champions League.
