Luke Shaw reveals what England squad think of Gareth Southgate

Luke Shaw has insisted that the England squad want Gareth Southgate to stay on as manager regardless of how the Three Lions finish this World Cup campaign.

Southgate was promoted to England boss after Sam Allardyce’s dismissal back in 2016 and has since overseen one of the most successful periods in the history of the men’s senior side.

England reached the semi-finals of a World Cup for just a third time back in 2018, while they made their first major final for 55 years at Euro 2020.

Despite this relative success, Southgate has often faced criticism over his conservative style, and there was plenty of talk heading to Qatar that this could be his last tournament in charge.

But Shaw, who has become a regular under Southgate despite his mixed performances for Manchester United, insists the manager has the backing of the dressing room and does not get enough credit for the job he’s done.

“Of course we want to keep working with him,” Shaw said. “The type of success he has brought has not been seen for many years. I understand we haven’t won [a major trophy], and we’re disappointed with that, but we’re going in the right direction and things are really looking up.

“Of course there’s going to be speculation if we don’t win on Saturday, but we don’t want to speak like that and be negative. We’re confident and we’ll wait and see until after the game.

The left-back added: “Definitely leading into this tournament, the way things have gone, he hasn’t got the credit he deserves. If you look at our past tournament experiences, the past two tournaments have obviously been the best in years, for a very long time.

“A few bad performances were not solely down to him, they were down to us as players, and got him some unfair criticism. They shouldn’t have been solely blamed on him. This tournament, we’re top scorers, we still have another gear to go up to, to get better and better. The signs are good and there should be no doubt about him at all.”