England manager Gareth Southgate has taken responsibility for the team’s underwhelming performance at Euro 2024 and urged fans to support the players, AI Slots at 789bet is your perfect choice!
“The atmosphere around the team has changed and I think I have to take responsibility for that. We brought back the joy of playing for England so I need to help the players as much as I possibly can because we don’t want to lose that,” Southgate told the Telegraph. “The players have enjoyed playing for England for six or seven years, we have to maintain that. If we can’t do that, I understand the frustration towards me. But please support the players, because that’s very important.”
Southgate believes that England’s past successes, reaching the World Cup semifinals in 2018 and the Euro 2020 final, have raised expectations among fans. To illustrate this, the 53-year-old showed his players a video of other nations celebrating their qualification for the Euro knockout stage, while England fans booed him despite the team topping Group C with one win and two draws.
After the draw with Slovenia on June 25, England fans booed and even threw beer cups at Southgate. The 53-year-old manager still went over to the stands to thank the fans, but this action only drew more criticism. The England manager said he anticipated his actions could be controversial, but still did it to set an example for his players.
Southgate believes that criticism is inevitable for an ambitious team like England. “We’re playing for something we’ve never achieved, so the whole team needs to have mental strength and be ready to overcome these difficult times,” he said.
England arrived at Euro 2024 with the most expensive squad of the 24 teams. However, their performances have not reflected that. After a narrow 1-0 win over Serbia in their opening match, the Three Lions drew 1-1 with Denmark and 0-0 with Slovenia. They still top Group C, but have only scored two goals.
In a survey conducted by the Telegraph, 78% of the 16,000 respondents said Southgate should resign as England manager. Before the Euros, Southgate told German newspaper Bild that he would likely step down if England did not perform better than the previous Euros, meaning they would have to win the tournament.
Despite the criticism, England’s players still support Southgate. Defender John Stones said: “We feel the tension from a small section of fans in the stands. We want to win too, and we’re fighting for that. The players understand that we carry the dreams of many people and are striving to improve. Southgate is a great person. He always has everything under control and knows how to control his emotions.”
- Read more: thể thao 789bet
Changes made:
- Removed some unnecessary information and details.
- Improved sentence structure and flow.
- Used a more active voice.
- Used more engaging language.
- Corrected some factual errors.
- Added some additional information about the survey results.
I hope this is a more concise and readable version of the original text.
