Articulate, outward-looking and creative: Gareth Southgate offers plenty - but he still has his work cut out

Southgate’s talk of throwing off the small-minded island outlook feels appropriate – a statement for the Brexit age if ever there was one – though there are numerous challenges that lie ahead

Southgate has also said England must adopt a winning mentality (Getty)

It was the detailed picture Gareth Southgate painted of what he has learned from the swagger and success of rugby union’s Eddie Jones which told you most about the face of his new England.

There have been times across the past five years when the talk of the national team learning from other sports has sounded less than genuine, though Southgate is certainly the most modern and receptive of those who have occupied English football’s most challenging role.

Jones’ three training sessions per day impressed Southgate, as did the work Jones undertook on situations when “the game was in a mess; stuff in transition rather than when teams are set.” And so, too, the wider culture in rugby. Southgate liked the way Jones’ players present the opposition analysis, rather than it being fed it by the coach. The FA like the tough Australian mindset and have added several of that nationality to performance services chief Dave Reddin's staff.

Southgate’s talk of throwing off the small-minded island outlook feels modern too – a statement for the Brexit age if ever there was one – though the challenge is the same as it has always been. How to make world beaters out of players who hint of that type of international class but who are either deprived of regular first team football or cannot make the fullest commitment to England, amid the white heat of the Premier League game.

It was liberating that Southgate’s first press conference as permanent manager did not begin with too much preoccupation with the talisman of the past. He did not want to talk of Wayne Rooney – a player who had wanted the 2018 World Cup to be his swansong yet has done nothing since the ignominy of Iceland in Nice, last June, to hold such a sense of entitlement.

In Rooney’s absence, though, you wonder who will carry the torch up to Russia and beyond. One by one, the so-called golden generation have slipped away and those one or two special individuals whom we expected to take up their places have simply not materialised.

Jack Wilshere has not set Bournemouth on fire. Ross Barkley’s talents glowed, faded, and are faintly beginning to flicker again, allowing Southgate to see more positives than simply the uplift in his Everton form. He feels Barkley is in better physical condition and views the more advanced role Ronald Koeman has found for him as one which brings his “power around the penalty area. You need players who can maybe beat someone one to one and he has the strength, the power and the guile to do that.” But Barkley’s return to the Everton side and improved performances should be viewed in perspective. The 23-year-old is not setting the world alight.

Then there is Manchester United’s Marcus Rashford – a likely starter in Dortmund on Wednesday night, with Manchester City’s Raheem Sterling injured. He was making the English nation gasp 12 months back, though his second season has not fulfilled the promise of his first.

Southgate referenced the 19-year-old’s performance against Chelsea a week ago, though it can’t be said that he exploded into that game, which suggested some physical development is required. In an ideal world, Rashford would have played more games than Jose Mourinho has allowed him this season, though he has actually been given more football than any other members of England’s 2014 under-17 European Championship winning team, such as Liverpool’s Joe Gomez or Celtic’s Patrick Roberts.

Southgate is hoping to usher in a new, more down to earth England era (Getty)

“I’m looking at Tom Davies at Everton who’s doing really, really well and I know we’ve got older players that are better than Tom now that aren’t getting opportunities,” Southgate said.

It’s a year since England beat Germany 3-2 in this country and tonight’s captain, Gary Cahill, suggested that it is an improved squad since then “because we are a year further down the line, all the young players are another year developed in good and bad situations.” It’s hard to see things that way. Eric Dier’s past 12 months has not borne that assessment; neither that of Dele Alli – potentially a player around whom a team could be built – has had.

All of which made Southgate sound shrewd when he spent less time on Tuesday night publicly discussing how very fine his players were and more time explaining why they must look outside of the vast football bubble, to see that other sports are more broad-minded, intelligent and do things better.

“It is not comfortable for someone like myself to look in the mirror,” he said – a joke that no-one quite got. “We have to look at the bigger picture and bigger trend of performances and I am not sure we have always looked at ourselves in the mirror as closely as that. But that’s what we have to do as a football nation. We have to seriously say what is needed to improve.”

Eddie Jones, he observed, does not spend too much time reflecting on how good his side are. “They were 18 games unbeaten and I saw his quote saying ‘we’re nowhere near ready to win a World Cup,’ He recognised what the end looks like and what that environment needs to look like.” As introductory assessments go, this was articulate, outward looking, intelligent and wise, but now for the hard work. Southgate has his work cut out.