Euro 2024: Gareth Southgate to take time to decide on England future

NEW DELHI: Gareth Southgate expressed uncertainty about his future as England's manager following the team's 2-1 loss to Spain in the Euro 2024 final on Sunday. This marks the second consecutive European Championship final defeat for the Three Lions, who also suffered a heartbreaking penalty shootout loss to Italy on home turf in the previous edition three years ago.Under Southgate's guidance, England reached the semi-finals of the 2018 World Cup and the quarter-finals of the 2022 tournament in Qatar. However, his current contract is set to expire at the end of the year.Despite his efforts, Southgate has been unable to break England's long-standing drought in major tournaments, which dates back to their triumph in the 1966 World Cup."I need to have those conversations with important people behind the scenes and obviously I can't discuss that publicly first," said Southgate on what his future holds."Without a doubt, England have got some fabulous young players and even the young ones now have got a lot of experience of tournaments."Many of this squad are going to be around in two, four, six, eight years' time. We have now been consistently back in the matches that matter, so it's the last step that we haven't been able to do."