England and Southgate reaping rewards of Guardiola’s City slickers

“P ep Guardiola is the best coach in the world,” Gareth Southgate says, and it is plain the England manager has plenty of reasons to toast his Manchester City counterpart, chief among them the improvement he has overseen in Jack Grealish.

When Southgate first began to pick Grealish at the start of the 2020-21 season, the winger was not exactly known for tracking back. Not any more. Not after his move to City from Aston Villa in 2021, not after two seasons of Guardiola, this one the breakout, which has the potential to end in treble glory.

Grealish was outstanding in both legs of the Champions League semi-final victory over Real Madrid but the adjective could be applied to many more of his performances; they have been complete. “Jack has played properly I would say in this period … against Madrid with and without the ball,” Southgate says. “That wasn’t the case two and a half years ago, if I’m honest. There’s been a lot of progress.”

Southgate is in good form as he looks ahead to England’s next set of Euro 2024 qualifiers – away to Malta on 16 June and at Old Trafford against North Macedonia three days later. His only target is to win the tournament. It is that or bust, he suggests, about whether there could be a climate for him to continue in the job for the 2026 World Cup, beyond the expiry of his contract in December 2024. More on that later.

But Southgate is just as insightful when he looks back on the season, at Guardiola and many of the other managers in the Premier League, when he veers into the territory of his England successor. It is not just Grealish that Guardiola has developed at City for England. What about John Stones, who is having the season of his life? Guardiola has also brought on Kyle Walker and