England’s Gareth Southgate praises Bukayo Saka and rest of forward line after rout
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England's midfielder Bukayo Saka shoots to score his third goal against North Macedonia on June 19.
PHOTO: AFP
LONDON – After Bukayo Saka struck his first senior career hat-trick in England’s 7-0 home rout of North Macedonia in Euro 2024 qualifying on Monday, his national team manager Gareth Southgate was asked if the 21-year-old winger is nearing football’s top echelon.
“He’s there,” Southgate replied matter-of-factly.
Despite a nagging Achilles injury, Saka shone in the Three Lions’ fourth straight Group C win that put them on top with 12 points and in the driver’s seat for the Finals.
“When he broke into the Arsenal team, what struck us was that in a team that were having a difficult time, he was performing at a really high level,” Southgate added. “Then when the team were playing well, he was still a key player, again performing at a really high level.
“That says a lot about his mentality, his ability to deal with pressure. That’s the environment we’re in all the time. He’s exceptional to work with.”
At the end of a long season in which Arsenal finished runners-up to Manchester City in the Premier League,
“It’s an injury that just needs managing... but when you’ve had one of the best nights of your life, it’s a reminder that it’s worth going through these things,” the England boss added.
“To see the joy on his face... he’s such a popular member of the team. And so humble, works incredibly hard.”
Saka was joined up front by captain Harry Kane, who scored record-extending 57th and 58th goals for his country, and Marcus Rashford – who also had a goal – in a forward line fans on social media were calling the best England have had in a while.
Is it a strike force Southgate would like to build around?
“For different games, different profiles of players are important, and you can never be sure that we’re going to have everybody available,” he said.
“That’s why nights like tonight, when the team were going well, we said to them at half-time, ‘You have to keep enjoying a night like this, you have to keep driving and finish it well’, because it’s not often you have the team at that sort of a moment really.”
Despite what Southgate called an “outrageous” scoreline – their opponents had beaten Italy in their World Cup play-off in 2022 – with Kalvin Phillips also on the scoresheet, Kane did not open the floodgates until the 27th minute.
Thankfully for England, it all worked out and Saka was thrilled with his performance.
“Tonight was a really special display we put out,” he said. “With me and (Rashford) running down the wings, we were really direct and they couldn’t really handle us. I enjoyed playing out there today.”
He is the first Arsenal player to score a hat-trick for England, and the youngest since Theo Walcott in 2008 against Croatia.
Three days after their 4-0 away win over Malta,
They have won their last 12 home qualifiers by an aggregate score of 47-4.
England do not resume qualifying matches until Sept 9 – they face Ukraine – and Southgate is looking forward to the down time after a season interrupted by the World Cup in Qatar, where they lost 2-1 to France in the quarter-finals.
“I don’t like to talk about it at these moments because otherwise there’s every excuse to not perform on a night like tonight,” he said.
“We gave the bulk of them two weeks off (after the domestic season), and they responded really well.
“Psychologically, they’re refreshed coming into these games and view it as a sort of mini-pre-season before they have another couple of weeks break.” REUTERS
