Gareth Southgate refusing to 'overly experiment' when England face Scotland in friendly

Scotland manager Steve Clarke wants to use match to determine the progress of his team

England manager Gareth Southgate oversees a training session at Rangers Training Centre ahead of the international friendly against Scotland. Getty

England manager Gareth Southgate insisted Tuesday's international friendly against rivals Scotland will not be the time to "overly experiment".

Both sides are on the cusp of qualification for next summer’s European Championship in Germany as they meet at Hampden Park for the 116th edition of the oldest fixture in international football.

Southgate sees England’s first friendly fixture since March 2022 as an important test for his side, fresh from Saturday’s challenging 1-1 draw against Ukraine.

Scotland have won their last five matches and will be roared on by a sold-out home crowd, and Southgate knows he has to get the balance right with his selection.

“We’ve got to find the right balance of physical freshness – we’ve had a day less preparation – experience, finding out about some players, winning, playing well,” he said. “So, the usual things that are expected of us with England, really.

“But I think the first thing is we can’t fiddle around with the team because we’re playing a top-level side, who are going to be at full tilt and giving us a really high-level challenge.

“So, you can’t overly experiment because that would be ridiculous.”

Southgate largely stuck with the tried and tested with his squad selection for this September double-header, leading to starts for Harry Maguire and Jordan Henderson against Ukraine.

It was the first competitive start of the season for Maguire, who remains down the pecking order at Manchester United, and the first time Henderson had represented his country since swapping Liverpool for Saudi Pro League side Al Ettifaq.

Southgate received some criticism for selecting the pair against Ukraine, while a disjointed, toothless performance hardly set pulses racing.

“I haven’t seen it, so the reaction for us is, we’re top of the group,” said the England manager, who could hand Levi Colwill and Eddie Nketiah their debuts in Glasgow.

“I think we’re the top scorers in Europe. The boys did a really good job in a difficult environment and we know that our attacking play didn’t quite click.

England player ratings v Ukraine

“I think some of that was the surface, really, because to make those really incisive, quick passes at times you just needed a little extra touch or there was a little bobble.

“I’m very conscious I wasn’t going to be too harsh on my internal review with the players. Because you could see moments when we’re watching it back where the ball pops over players’ feet or (someone) goes to play a ball first time, and it lofts in the air.

“Equally, that wasn’t the case with everything that we did, so we’re always challenging. We want to be better and better and we’ve got to set a high standard.

“We weren’t as happy coming away with the point as we might have been but it’s still a really good result."

Clarke keen to assess Scotland progress

Scotland manager Steve Clarke, meanwhile, wants to use the match as a chance to see how close his side have got to England.

Scotland go into the game on a high having won 11 qualifying matches in a row. Friday’s 3-0 victory in Cyprus made it five wins from five in the Euro 2024 qualifiers and kept open the possibility of Scotland qualifying on Tuesday.

But Clarke will put aside thoughts of Germany next summer as Scotland host a side who will provide a stern test of their recent progress.

“Certainly in my lifetime England have probably moved a little bit further in front. We are trying to close the gap on them and we will find out how much we have closed the gap," he said.

“For us, it’s just about trying to continue to improve. I speak about it all the time, game to game. Obviously, we played well in Cyprus. It was a comfortable evening and now we see what we can do against a team that’s nominally a pot-one team, always in the later stages of major tournaments.

“That’s the benchmark we want to judge ourselves against and we will find out how close we are.