areth Southgate has performed down the possibilities of a much-changed England XI for Tuesday's pleasant with Scotland, saying it will be "ridiculous" to "overly experiment" at Hampden Park.

England's assembly with their oldest and fiercest rival - which is being performed to commemorate the a hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the primary worldwide between the nations on 30 November 1872 - is their first pleasant in 18 months, because the back-to-back wins over Switzerland and the Ivory Coast in March 2022.

Southgate confronted criticism for his sticking with senior gamers Jordan Henderson, who's now enjoying in Saudi Arabia, and out-of-favour Manchester United defender Harry Maguire in Saturday's 1-1 draw with Ukraine in Euro 2024 qualifying however he was anticipated to make modifications towards the Scots.

But the England supervisor says he "can't fiddle around" with the group towards Steve Clarke's in-form facet, who may develop into the primary nation to achieve subsequent summer season's Euros if different outcomes go their approach on Tuesday.

"We've got to find the right balance of physical freshness - we've had a day less preparation - experience, finding out about some players, winning, playing well: the usual things that are expected of us with England, really," Southgate mentioned.

"But the first thing is we can't fiddle around with the team because we're playing a top-level side who will be at full-tilt and giving us a really high-level challenge. You can't overly experiment because that would be ridiculous."

However, Southgate acknowledged that the event would give him the chance to "find out a bit more" concerning the characters of a few of his much less skilled gamers, elevating the chance that the likes of Levi Colwill or Eberechi Eze may characteristic.

Southgate added: "We see it as a really good test of us as a team. We'll learn a lot about the group and individuals within it. We're playing a really high-level opponent in an intimidating atmosphere and they're the sorts of nights that have been an important part of our progress.

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"Some gamers could have skilled that, some will not. It's going to be nice to search out out a bit extra about them. We've received to compete, we'll get rolled over if we do not compete."

England had breezed through qualifying with four wins from as many games, including against Italy in Naples, before being held by Ukraine in Wroclaw.

The result has led to familiar criticism of Southgate's tactics and selections but he brushed aside the questions and said the scrutiny on him will never end.

"We weren't as glad coming away with some extent as we would have been," Southgate said. "It's nonetheless a extremely good consequence and we noticed what occurred in our group later within the night time.

"When we beat North Macedonia, people were questioning the quality they had and the standard of the opposition but Italy went there and couldn't get a win so we we kind of know the cycle frankly with England.

"I've been within the job lengthy sufficient now. It's fixed, it is endless. But we now have to actually focus internally on what's essential for us, evaluate to our personal requirements and know what we're working in the direction of and evaluating ourselves to, actually."