England boss Gareth Southgate claims he was once a Scotland supporter

Gareth Southgate claimed he used to support Scotland as a boy but admitted that England are monitoring both Harvey Barnes and Elliot Anderson.

The England manager described the two nations as having a "brilliant sporting rivalry" - as he revealed he had a spell growing up where he was something of a fan of the latter.

He said: "My first memory is some of your mates nicking the goalposts at Wembley! So I'm back to 1977.

"This is horrendous, what I'm going to say here ahead of tomorrow, but I was supporting Scotland in 1978 (when they played at the World Cup) because we hadn't qualified. So I kind of followed that through the trauma of Peru, and the Netherlands. Then we were back in in 1982 and all of a sudden for me then onwards it was all about England.

"Great fixtures, I've met so many of the former players over the years, worked with some of them, played with some of them. It's a fabulous game. I know it's a rivalry and people will be wary of it crossing a boundary, but it's a brilliant sporting rivalry and a great game to be involved in."

Southgate had also been asked for his thoughts on a potential swap of allegiances for Barnes and Newcastle team-mate Elliot Anderson, who has played for both countries at youth level and received a call-up to the Scotland squad last month, only to be forced to withdraw due to injury.

Southgate said: "Both are very good players. With Elliot, again I think he's a player that has progressed really well. We've previously spoken with him, but of course he was named in the squad here, so assumed that was that.

"I thought he had an excellent pre-season with Newcastle, you could see that evolution that he's got as a young player and the potential he's got. I know Newcastle rate him very highly.

"I don't know is the answer to the ultimate question for either player, but there are going to be more and more of these sorts of situations. There are so many players with dual or triple nationality now, it is very complicated for every country, and sometimes you can't offer the player something as quickly as they'd like.

"We've benefited from it and lost players because of it, and I think that's always going to be the case."

Barnes is reported to be considering a switch having played only once for England in a friendly.

Southgate said of the 25-year-old: "He's obviously a player who has played for us.

"We've got a lot of competition in that area of the pitch. He's a player we're always monitoring and he's a player we like a lot."

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