Southgate qualities echo Mourinho, Conte says Holland
22/06/2018
Saint Petersburg: England coach Steve Holland believes Gareth Southgate is showing the same key qualities he saw in the likes of Jose Mourinho, Rafael Benitez and Antonio Conte at Chelsea.
Holland worked with the London club's first team from 2011 before joining Southgate, and England, in 2016.
"I think with Gareth, he ticks so many of the boxes that the best that I've worked with tick," Holland said.
"Does he understand man-management and getting the best out of players? Yes. Does he understand the value of giving staff ownership and responsibility? Yes absolutely.
"Does he have experience of international football at the highest level? Yes.
"He has some outstanding qualities and I've really seen him grow into the role."
England play Panama on Sunday, looking to build on an encouraging, albeit last-gasp, opening win over Tunisia, but with morale high after Harry Kane's double in Volgograd.
The mood was different 18 months ago, when Southgate took over a team rattled by the tumultuous sacking of Sam Allardyce and still smarting from defeat to Iceland at Euro 2016.
"I think Gareth recognised early on that it wasn't a time for revolution," Holland said.
Instead, they began rebooting England's young squad and scouting their potential opponents, starting at the Confederations Cup in Russia last year.
"We spent a lot of time on a plane but it really gave us the opportunity to speak about what we'd learned," Holland said.
"We tried to envisage how our team would look in those kinds of fixtures and we made some decisions. One of those was a back three. That decision was with and without the ball. We felt we would be better with and without the ball with a back three. We had dinner in Sochi and that was more or less where it was named."
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