Gareth Southgate is an English football manager and former player who played as a defender or as a midfielder. He is the manager of the England national team.
Gary Neville believes Gareth Southgate should make “three or four changes” to his England starting line-up for their Group G encounter with Belgium. England’s game against Belgium at the Kaliningrad Stadium on Thursday is a fight to top Group G but with qualification already secured, Gareth Southgate has the opportunity to rest a number of his star performers. Neville, who worked as Roy Hodgson’s assistant manager at three major tournaments, thinks Southgate should make changes.
“I take both sides of the argument, take one game at a time and do your job but I think back to France when they won the tournament in 1998.
“They made nine changes for their final group game as they were planning to win the tournament and they felt giving their first XI a break was the right thing to do. I’ve seen England teams blow up at the quarter-final stage where they have run out of legs, where they have not been able to see the job through. I felt strongly that if we made more use of the squad we would have felt the effect of that later in the tournament.
“In Euro 2016, we made five or six changes for the third game with the feeling it would make us fresher for Iceland but it did not work out. People will look back and say it was the wrong thing to do.
“Roberto Martinez is planning on making changes as he’s planning to win the competition. From an England view, it’s important to give the squad faith and trust. If there are three or four changes to be made we should make them as you won’t get a chance to make those changes. Now is the only time.”