Gareth Southgate has said that Sir Alex Ferguson has inspired him to bring on more youngsters and put the trust in them in his management style.
“We’ve got competition for places and I think with attacking players anyway they mature very young, and they can go in very young,” said Southgate ahead of Monday’s Group A clash in Montenegro.”
“So it’s not an issue to play them, and really we’ve found another player that we really liked [in Hudson-Odoi], but we weren’t certain that he’d be able to adapt to this level, and we’re a bit fortunate in finding him, in that we probably wouldn’t have done that in this camp.”
“We’d have given him a bit longer in the U21s. But already he’s proved in this environment that he can more than cope.”
“I think that comes into everything: how much we expose them to the public, how much we put them into commercial situations,” Southgate said of their responsibility to young players.”
“We’ve got to be thinking about all of that all of the time because it’s very easy for them to enjoy these moments, and they’ve got to enjoy these moments, but equally, there’s a good balance.”
“I always think of Sir Alex with Ryan and how he did that so well. They had sustained success because of that.”
“So, although they’re not our player on a day-to-day basis, I think we’ve got a responsibility to do that as much as we can, because also we’re putting them onto another level and we’ve got to make sure we get the balance right for the club, but most importantly for the player.”
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