Gareth Southgate ready to play it cool at World Cup draw

England manager Gareth Southgate has promised to deploy his best poker face during today’s World Cup draw in Moscow regardless of who the Three Lions must play next summer.

The draw, which is being co-presented by 1986 World Cup golden boot and Match of the Day presenter Gary Lineker, starts at 3pm Irish time today, with Russian president Vladimir Putin expected to be among the audience at the Kremlin’s State Palace.

Four years ago in Brazil, the former Football Association chairman Greg Dyke was caught on camera making a throat-cut gesture when England were drawn with Costa Rica, Italy, and Uruguay. It was an embarrassing gaffe but proved to be prescient when England crashed out of the 2014 tournament in record time.

With England among a pot of eight second seeds for the Russia 2018 draw, they could find themselves facing either Brazil or Germany from pot one, Ireland’s conquerors Denmark from pot three and the ever-dangerous Nigeria among the fourth seeds.

Southgate said there was no question of thinking about who he would like to avoid or get in the draw, as it was out of his hands and England’s recent history has shown how even seemingly fortunate draws can go wrong.

The 47-year-old, however, is determined not to give anything away when England’s route to the knockout stages is revealed.

When asked about Dyke’s response to the Brazil draw, Southgate said: “I’ll leave any of those gestures to the chairman. I think I’ve got a reasonable poker face but we’ll find out!

“Our mindset has to be that every opponent at this tournament is a team that can beat you. Equally, every opponent is a team we can beat.

“There’s no ‘sailing through’ at a World Cup and, if that’s been our mentality in the past, maybe that’s why we haven’t done so well.”

The former England defender, who celebrated his first anniversary as permanent manager yesterday, admitted he would have preferred England to be in pot one with most of the big guns but said that was a result of the failures at the 2014 World Cup and 2016 European Championship, where his predecessor Roy Hodgson’s reign ended in defeat to Iceland — a potential opponent next summer.

“It is very important we never underestimate our opponents,” he said.

“Our preparation for matches, no matter who we play against, has to be very good, thoroughly detailed and prepared for scenarios where things don’t go to plan.

“But I also think, looking at a couple of the Icelandic players who play in our league, we are really guilty of underestimating the quality of other teams. None of these teams is a given.”

Southgate has said he has “massive empathy” for Jose Mourinho after the Manchester United boss complained about Phil Jones receiving pain-killing injections to play against Germany.

The in-form defender limped off during the first half of that goalless draw on November 10 and has missed United’s last four games with a thigh problem.

Mourinho said last week that Jones had been playing with a slight strain that United’s staff had been managing, but the 25-year-old was then given six jabs by England’s doctors before the Germany friendly.

Southgate said: “First and foremost, I have massive empathy with Jose. As a manager, you don’t want to lose players to injury.

“For me, as the national coach, that’s the worst scenario when a player goes back to his club and is not able to play.

“Manchester United are incredibly supportive of everything we do. Sometimes people suggest that is not the case but they are arguably our most supportive club.

“We have got ongoing dialogue over this situation — it is a complex one and we want to make sure we get these things right.

“Equally, I have every trust in our medical team that they make the right calls.

“They are very experienced people and this is an unfortunate situation and we hope Phil is back playing as soon as he can be.”