Matt Le Tissier hits out at ‘woke’ Gareth Southgate ahead of Qatar World Cup

Matt Le Tissier has hit out at Gareth Southgate ahead of the Qatar World Cup, using ‘woke’ in a pejorative sense to describe the England manager.

The former footballer was speaking to Nigel Farage on his GB News show Talking Pints, when he said he’d offered to coach the England players on penalties.

The pair were discussing his penalty record for Southampton, which saw him score 47 of 48 spot kicks for the south coast club.

Le Tissier said: “I have on occasions in the past approaching World Cups and European Championships offered my services to go and coach the players, if they want some advice on taking penalties.”

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“Mr Southgate, are you listening?” Farage said.

Le Tissier then took the opportunity to use the word ‘woke’, presumably as a criticism, by saying: “To be fair, I mean, there were probably other managers that may have been more likely to listen than the woke Mr Southgate.”

Matt Le Tissier joins Nigel Farage for Talking Pintswww.youtube.com

“Gosh, I haven’t even got him on to Gary Lineker yet” Farage said as the crowd applauded.

“I would quite happily take a penalty still, at my age,” Le Tissier went on to say. “I really enjoyed the pressure of those situations.

“I really looked forward to taking penalties. And I think one of the biggest things you can have as a penalty-taker is your mindset going into it has to be really positive. And I believe that was one of the biggest reasons why my penalty record was good.”

The former footballer criticised the England manager on GB NewsGetty/GB News

It comes after Le Tissier was subjected to a backlash online after posting some very controversial claims about the Ukraine war – with David Baddiel responding with a damning comment.

The comedian hit out at Le Tissier after he uploaded the latest in a long line of divisive posts, weighing in on the news coming out of Ukrainian city Bucha earlier this year.

He quote tweeted a post that read: "The media lied about Weapons of Mass Destruction, the media lied about Covid, the media lied about the Hunter Biden laptop, but honestly they are telling the truth about Bucha."

People were quick to hit back at the post, with Baddiel writing: "I'm starting to wonder if Terry Venables was right."

As 90s football fans will remember, this is a reference to former England manager Venables who continually failed to pick Le Tissier for his squads, and as a result the former Southampton player was only capped eight times for the Three Lions.

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