Adele, England and Man Utd: Gareth Southgate’s desert island disc

Gareth Southgate has told BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs that he has decided to leave his job as England manager before the end of Euro 2024.

The 54-year-old, who guested on the latest episode of the long-running programme, chose Adele’s Someone Like You as one of the eight songs she would take with her if she had to win a gig, explaining to presenter Lauren Will be taken to the desert island. Laverne said he “kept playing it until the end of the last Euros” because “I knew I was going”.

Southgate resigned as manager in July, two days after England lost 2-1 to Spain in the Euro 2024 final.

However, he revealed that he had decided before the final that it was “time for a change all around”.

Speaking about the Adele track, Southgate said: “It had so many words in it that, if I listen to it today, it relates to my relationship with England.”

The song, which appears on Adele’s 2011 album 21, is written from a woman’s perspective addressing her former partner.

Southgate explained, “They have to move on and you wish them the best and there are regrets, but there were really some memories made.”

The former midfielder and defender managed his country for 102 games over an eight-year tenure and is the only manager since 1966 World Cup winner Sir Alf Ramsey to take the England men’s team to the final of a major tournament, which they did twice. Done – in Euro 2020 and Euro 2024.

He told Desert Island Discs that he is “not against” doing something “completely different” and that his next career step “shouldn’t be within coaching”.

“When you’re a coach and you have one of the biggest jobs, how do you follow that up?” Southgate said.