England will benefit from Euro 2020 delay, says manager Gareth Southgate

LONDON: England manager Gareth Southgate believes that his side will be better prepared for the Euro 2020 as the tournament was delayed until next year.

As a result of the coronavirus pandemic, the tournament has been pushed back to June 2021 with the Three Lions drawn in Group D alongside Croatia, Scotland and Czech Republic.

Since international football resumed this year, England have enjoyed mixed results and most recently bounced back from a 2-0 defeat against Belgium to thrash Iceland 4-0 in the Nations League.

"We have got this strange split where half of the squad from Russia have drifted away really. They are not playing with their clubs or have retired from international football so we have got a lot of guys who were the base of the team against Iceland - [Kieran] Trippier, [Kyle] Walker, [Eric] Dier, [Harry] Maguire, [Jordan] Pickford - who have good experiences and have started to build a lot of caps," Goal.com quoted Southgate as saying.

"But then we have this younger group who are really innocent at international level in terms of the number of caps and experiences and a lot of them are so young as well.

"We have got to keep improving and they have got to learn from all the experiences they have had but I think we are definitely in a better place than we would have been after last autumn because those games were not the challenge we needed to improve," he added.

England are currently scheduled to play two World Cup qualifiers in March 2021 before Euro 2020 kicks off in June.