Gareth Southgate reacts to England’s ‘tough’ Euro 2024 qualification draw

Gareth Southgate feels England have been handed a difficult qualification group for Euro 2024 after being drawn against reigning champions Italy – who, of course, beat them in the final last time.

There were gasps in the audience in Frankfurt during Sunday’s draw when England were pulled out in Italy’s group, with Ukraine, North Macedonia and Malta making up the rest of Group C.

The top two teams qualify so England have some degree of margin for error, though the Three Lions have a miserable record against the Azzurri and have not won a competitive match against them since 1977.

Southgate’s side failed to score against Italy in their two recent Nations League face-offs, losing at the San Siro, and the England boss feels his side have been handed a very demanding route to Euro 2024.

‘Well it’s clearly a tough draw given the quality of the opposition. But we’ve had draws in qualification that have probably been a little bit more comfortable than that,’ Southgate told Sky Sports.

‘Although, I’d have to say, Poland and Hungary in the last qualifying group [for the World Cup] was particularly tough as well. So we’re used to that. The draws are what they are, it’s how you perform on the day.’

On facing Italy yet again, he continued: ‘There’s not too many surprises! They’ve changed the team a lot for all of those different matches.

‘We know the quality that they have, we know the depth that they have and England’s record against Italy generally is not very good so we’ve got to improve that.’

Ukraine made the quarter-final at Euro 2020 where they lost to England – somewhat ironically at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome – while North Macedonia beat Italy in their World Cup play-off earlier this year, to add even more narratives to the