Gareth Southgate has challenged Jack Grealish to build on the promising start to his England career by becoming a bigger goalscoring threat. Grealish is yet to open his account at international level and Southgate, who thinks the winger has become more tactically aware since his £100m move to Manchester City, wants him to increase his output in the final third.
The obvious contrast is with Raheem Sterling, who has 18 goals in 70 appearances for England. The City forward, who scored three goals during the run to the final of Euro 2020, sets the standard for Southgate’s other wide players to follow.
It is the next step for Grealish, who has become a vital member of Southgate’s squad after adapting to the manager’s demands. The 26-year-old offers plenty of trickery and dribbling ability on the left but the former Aston Villa playmaker cannot be satisfied with his record of zero goals from his 15 caps.
“I think he recognised we asked certain things of him in terms of when he first joined us, the pressing,” Southgate said. “The big challenge with us is he’s 15 games without a goal. The big challenge is to start registering those numbers that our other wide players have been able to produce over a period of time. There’s no reason he can’t do that.
“He’s physically in a better place. He’s able to play the midweek games now. When we had him at the end of the season he was only able to train two days in every three, so it’s a completely different situation to the European Championships.”
Southgate thinks Grealish has benefited from working with Pep Guardiola at City. “Having watched Pep’s teams really closely for a long period of time, positioning, the positioning in possession, is fundamental to how his teams play and that means that they’re in the right positions to go and press when they lose the ball,” he said. “Without a doubt we knew that was going to be an area that would be a change for Jack. He was given more licence to roam with Aston Villa and he seems to have adapted to that and be pressing well for the team.”
Southgate is not worried about Grealish, Sterling and Phil Foden having to compete with each other for starting opportunities in City’s attack. The attacking trio are all in England’s squad for this month’s World Cup qualifiers against Andorra and Hungary.
“I think it’s good for us because none of them are going to be flogged,” Southgate said. “They are all going to play in a team that play fantastic attacking football. They might not individually play as much as they would like but I think they are all going to play enough. If they are not getting as much football as they like, they will probably have a bigger desire to play with us and score goals with us.”
Southgate praised Jesse Lingard for making a strong impact as a substitute for Manchester United in recent weeks. The 28-year-old marked a late cameo against West Ham with a brilliant last-minute winner and he played a part in Cristiano Ronaldo scoring the goal that saw United beat Villarreal in the Champions League last Wednesday. Lingard, who has regained his England place after failing to make the squad for the Euros, also scored a s a substitute against Newcastle.
“He is a fantastically resilient character,” Southgate said. “Not every player is able to come off the bench and have a big impact. Jesse has always been a player able to do that. That’s probably not a great thing in terms he’d want when it comes to starting more often. But in matches he’s played this season, he’s scored twice off the bench, he had an assist.
“He’s always been a consistent performer for us, and we’ve got great faith and belief in him and even though he’s not playing as much as you’d ideally like, his performances with England are almost unquestionable, really. He has got a challenge to get that game time at Old Trafford. But as a player all you can do is if you get five minutes, make it the best possible five minutes. If you get 15, have that impact within the 15.”