Manchester United’s interest is completely irrelevant to me

Gareth Southgate has said Manchester United’s potential interest in him is “completely irrelevant” as he aims to win Euro 2024 with England.

The 53-year-old has emerged as a possible favorite to succeed Erik ten Hag at Old Trafford if the Dutchman is sacked after the FA Cup final.

Southgate, however, insisted there had been “no conversations” with those who had declared him the front-runner for the job. “I have one thing to focus on,” he said in an interview with ITV News. “This is about having as successful a tour as possible with England. Anything other than that is completely irrelevant to me.”

Describing his preparations for next month’s tour, Southgate confirmed he is learning German and “slowly building a little vocabulary”. He also ruled out the possibility of his players getting involved in any political demonstration this time. Players kneeling have become a talking point at previous Euros, while the last World Cup in Qatar sparked tensions after players were warned of penalties for wearing LGBTQ-supporting ‘One Love’ captain’s armbands .

Southgate, who insisted the issue was not a “distraction for me” in Doha, said he could not foresee any political statements from the Germany players. “I don’t think there’s anything specific or there’s any external pressure to expect to support and, you know, eventually we took a stand on certain things, but that wasn’t our reason when we went to the tournaments. , we didn’t seek to make political statements, things happened to us as a team like racist abuse from players that shaped what we did and represented as a team and we didn’t actively look away. to do that,” he said. “Our mindset is just to go and win the tournament for real.”

Of his progress in learning German, Southgate said: “(It’s) average… Well, I’ve got an app I’m struggling with and I was aware that I didn’t take German at school, I did a bit of French and Spanish, so when i travel i can handle those countries. But with German I had no idea, so I’m slowly building a small vocabulary. I don’t think you know, finding the subway station will really help us right now.”

England manager Southgate is among the potential candidates to succeed Ten Hag. Unlike others connected to the job, such as Thomas Tuchel, he is yet to win any awards as a coach, but that is not expected to count against him.

Telegraph Sport detailed last week how United have no intention of sacking Ten Hag before the FA Cup final, but it is now considered increasingly likely that a managerial change will be made once the club’s season is over.

However, winning his first trophy this summer – the European Championship – could take Southgate out of the running for the United job if he then decides to stay on as England manager for the 2026 World Cup.

“If I start talking about it then I’m already distracted from what I’m doing,” Southgate said when asked if he would return to managing the club. “So I think the country would expect me to focus on England and rightly so. We’ve had three tours where we’ve got the crowd on brilliant, the ride, I think we know that and I know you’ve got the desire to take it a step further and this is a brilliant opportunity for us to do it. that.”