Gareth Southgate urges England youngsters to fill the void left by 'missing generation'

Now that the 'Golden Generation' have all moved on, England has been left short of experience and leadership in key areas

Gareth Southgate wants his young Lions to step up to the mark (Getty)

Gareth Southgate has told England’s young players to step up and fill the leadership gap left by the ‘missing generation’ of players who should be ahead of them.

With no Wayne Rooney in the latest England squad there is no obvious captain and Southgate has not yet decided who will wear the armband against Scotland and France. Rooney’s international career appears to be over and after the retirements of the ‘Golden Generation’ that leaves England short of experience and leadership in key areas.

There is a telling lack of senior established players who were born in the 1980s in Southgate’s squad, just Joe Hart (30), Gary Cahill (31) and Adam Lallana (29). The new core of this England team were all born in the mid-1990s: Harry Kane, Eric Dier and John Stones (all 23), Raheem Sterling (22) and Dele Alli (21). But that lack of peak-age players gives the youngsters a chance to step up into the gap.

“It is almost like there’s a small generation of players that is missing,” Southgate said at his press conference at St George’s Park on Wednesday. “We had all the guys that we all know, many of whom are at retirement point now. And yet the next group are quite a bit younger in terms of those big experiences.”

Southgate has urged Kane, Dier and the rest to step up into that gap between now and the World Cup in Russia one year from now. “People have got to start to step into those shoes,” Southgate said. “They’ve got to take on that mantle, they’ve got to embrace that challenge. It’s a great one for them. Because there’s an opportunity for people here, to write their own headlines, write themselves into England history.”

“I agree, at the moment, you look around and from the outside there aren’t the established players,” Southgate continued. “That can be in our favour. We’ve always relied on one or two of those individuals. Now we’ve got to think about a collective.”

Kane and Co form England's new core (Getty)

Younger than any of those players is Marcus Rashford, still just 19 years old. Southgate has included him in the squad for next month’s games and not for the European Under-21 Championships. He said that decision was not because of any pressure from Jose Mourinho, but because of the number of games Rashford has played for Manchester United this year.

“When I’ve watched matches like the game away at Chelsea in the FA Cup when Rashford was playing on his own for [a] long period of the game, the game against Chelsea at Old Trafford, the European matches, quarter-finals, semi-finals, where he had such a big impact in big games, he should be in our squad,” Southgate said.

“The only decision for me was do we send him to both [seniors and Under-21s]. My reflection on the route we went with Harry [Kane] two years ago, that I was obviously closely involved with, I don’t look back at that and think we quite got that right. And you’ve got to use those experiences when you’re forming those decisions.”

Southgate said Rashford deserved to be in his squad (Getty)

Southgate pointed to Rashford’s experience at Manchester United so far and said that it marked him out as a player who even at 19 years old could deal with the pressures of the biggest stage in international football.

“What I like most of all is the humility and the mentality,” Southgate said, listing Rashford’s qualities. “Constantly wants to improve. Doesn’t seem to be phased by whichever situation he’s put into. We saw that end of last season with Roy [Hodgson]. We’ve seen that with United. We see him step up and take the free-kick against Celta Vigo. He has some fantastic techniques. He thinks deeply about the game. He’s got good tactical understanding.”

Marcus Rashford has already won the FA Cup, the League Cup and the Europa League for Manchester United even though he made his first-team debut less than two years ago. “What I always find with the young players who come through at United, they’re bred to play in front of 70,000 people every week,” Southgate said. “That’s part of the mentality of the youth system there.”

“What we’ve got is guys who are still hungry to succeed, they are not there in terms of the vast number of trophies that some of those other people had won, and that’s where the personality comes through. Rashford has already won more than I ever won, which is fucking depressing.”