England's boss Southgate on United rumors: 'completely disrespectful'

Gareth Southgate, manager of England, blasted the recent rumors of him taking over Manchester United, calling them "completely disrespectful" at a press conference on Friday.

It has been over seven years since Southgate became the manager of the "Three Lions." He will lead the team to compete at the UEFA European Championship (Euros) that will begin on June 14 in Germany. They have never won the title of the tournament in the previous 16 editions of it.

"I think there are two things from my point of view, one is that I'm the England manager," Southgate said at the press conference ahead of Friday's friendly with Brazil. "I've got one job basically – to try and deliver a European Championship. Clearly before that, there are two important games this week."

"Second thing is, Manchester United have a manager and I think it is always completely disrespectful when there is a manager in place. I'm president of the LMA [League Managers' Association] so I don't have any time for that sort of thing really," he added.

Southgate's managing record with England is absolutely not bad. They finished in the fourth place in the FIFA World Cup in Russia in 2018, as the runners-up in the Euros in 2021 and reached the quarterfinals in the World Cup in Qatar in 2022.

However, the above results are not good enough for England, who won the World Cup title before and at the moment have one of their best generations of players, most of whom are in their prime. According to ESPN, the FA wanted Southgate to continue to manage the national team at least through the next World Cup in 2026, but he didn't want to make any decision until after the Euros this year.

"I think I've answered this every time I've sat with you. My focus is the European Championship. If we did a contract here before then everybody would be saying, 'Why are you signing a contract before a Euros where you've got to prove yourself?" Southgate told reporters. "I'm certainly not going to speak to anyone else, I never have. I've been eight years in the job and would never entertain speaking to anyone else while I'm in a job, so I don't know if that answers your question."

As for the so-called likely destination for Southgate, United, they are currently in the sixth place in the Premier League with 47 points after 28 games. There is still hope, but not good hope, for them to secure qualification for next season's UEFA Champions League. Nonetheless, considering the club's tremendous investments in transfers since manager Erik ten Hag arrived, the "Red Devils" are unlikely to be happy about it even if they appear in the Champions League nest season.

Now that Sir Jim Ratcliffe became a minority shareholder of United and is in charge of their recruitment, there are understandably speculations of him wanting to replace Ten Hag with a manager like Southgate, who is good at dealing with the dressing room.