Southgate coping with pressure, says ex-teammate

Geoff Thomas said Gareth Southgate was a great friend who helped him with his charity work

Ex-Wolves footballer Geoff Thomas MBE has said his friend England manager Gareth Southgate is "coping with the pressure" of being criticised for his decisions at Euro 2024.

England are set to face Switzerland in the quarter-finals later, but their performance in the tournament has had lots of criticism.

Mr Thomas said he had spoken to his former Crystal Palace teammate, who "knows the job comes with that."

"If you don't get it spot on every single game, you are going to get criticised."

Mr Thomas told BBC Hereford and Worcester pressure included that from sports pundits, who Mr Thomas said had "their jobs to do and rightfully so".

"We don't want everybody agreeing with what he is doing and I am sure he is looking at certain tactical things he has done and gone 'oh I've not got that right', but the great thing is England are still in the competition," he said.

Mr Thomas, whose teams have also included England and Crewe Alexandra, captained Crystal Palace when they reached the FA Cup final in 1990.

He said Southgate was a "young lad at Crystal Palace when I started".

"He actually cleaned my boots for a little while and then he played in the same side," he said. "He still to this day calls me skipper."

Mr Thomas led a fundraising team which raised more than £1m for blood cancer charity Cure Leukaemia in a cycle ride

Mr Thomas, from Redditch, Worcestershire, was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia in 2003, a year after he retired from football.

He subsequently raised millions of pounds for charity, became a patron of Cure Leukaemia and launched his own charity.

Southgate had supported his work, including sending a message to Mr Thomas and his team when they took part in fundraising cycle ride on the Tour de France route in 2021.

"We do keep in touch a lot and he has helped myself out with Cure Leukaemia, the work I do with them, many times, so he's a great mate," Mr Thomas said.

Mr Thomas added he would love to see England reach the Euro 2024 final and he believed they may have been weighed down by the expectations of England "winning easily" up to this point.

However, he thought their dramatic comeback win against Slovakia on Sunday may have eased the tension and he hoped they now "just go for it".