England brushed aside rivals Scotland with a convincing 3-0 win at Wembley to stay top of their World Cup qualifying group.
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England captain Wayne Rooney has backed interim boss Gareth Southgate to be appointed permanent manager of the Three Lions.
The fickle nature of football management was revealed as Southgate’s discussion followed a press conference in which Scotland manager Gordon Strachan, whose side have lost consecutive fixtures 3-0, was prickly when asked about his own future. “We said a few things to each other at halftime and the manager did”.
Grant Hanley, James Forrest and Robert Snodgrass all had chances before Lallana nodded home his second worldwide goal in as many games, with Cahill directing home a Wayne Rooney corner to add gloss to the scoreline.
“Probably when I’m just about to die, I’ll think, ‘How did you get on Gordon?’ Not a bad life”, Strachan added.
Whether Southgate is handed the job permanently will be determined after England hosts Spain in a friendly on Tuesday.
“It was good to see the players come through a pressurised environment and win”, said Southgate.
“The rest is out of my hands”. “They displayed lots of the things we worked on in the week”.
Scotland settled the better of the two teams, with John Stones looking particularly unsteady for a stuttering England, but Sturridge gave the home side the lead with the first real opportunity.
Southgate has consistently expressed his desire to take on the role full-time and indicated he expects the process to begin after the game against Spain.
The chances continued to arrive in the opening five minutes of the half, and Snodgrass was denied by a fine block from John Stones moments later as the visitors pushed for an equalising goal. “It looks as though they’ll have a couple of players missing but they have strength in depth and a clear identity of how they play through all of their age groups”. He confirmed there were no specific agreements in place with clubs to release certain players from the 25-man party, and it looks likely that Harry Kane, Nathaniel Clyne and Jack Wilshere will be granted game-time against the 2010 World Cup winners.
“However, before that point there were some moments where we weren’t as controlled and we had to dig in at times”.
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James Morrison did force Hart into a save on 55 minutes with his strike from inside the area on the left, but Cahill put the result beyond doubt six minutes later as he got on the end of Rooney’s corner to beat Gordon with a glancing header.
