England manager Gareth Southgate offers olive branch to Jose Mourinho to soothe club vs country row

Southgate specifically addressed Mourinho’s concerns ahead of the World Cup draw in Moscow

Gareth Southgate has moved to smooth relations with Jose Mourinho (Getty)

Gareth Southgate has sought to publicly smooth England’s newly “complex” relationship with Jose Mourinho, saying he has “massive empathy” for the Manchester United boss after his complaints over injuries to Chris Smalling and Phil Jones on international duty and that they are often the “most supportive club”, but still backed his own medical team.

The Portuguese recently went so far as saying of Smalling “I hope he doesn’t get his [England] spot because somebody comes [back] injured” and revealed his amazement that Jones was picked for a mere friendly match against Germany when he clearly wasn’t fully fit.

That has left the latter out with a month-long thigh injury, having missed his club’s last four games, and Southgate stressed that was his “worst scenario” as an international boss.

The England manager specifically addressed Mourinho’s concerns ahead of the World Cup draw in Moscow to offer an olive branch, and said there has been discussions between the two parties over the situation.

“First and foremost, I have massive empathy [for] Jose,” Southgate said. “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 are most supportive club. We are very conscious of our relationship with them. 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.”