Gareth Southgate hired All Blacks advisor and created video to help show what it means to play for England

Gareth Southgate employed an advisor to the All Blacks as part of his way of building up a desire for players to represent England again and emphasise what it actually means to play for the Three Lions.

England players have often been accused by fans of not caring, with many pulling out of international squads with minor injuries which would not have otherwise stopped them playing for their clubs, and this is something Southgate is eager to address.

Southgate will have little more than a week with his players during this first international break of the season and he understands that overloading on tactics, as some England managers have done in the past, is not the way the best way to improve on the field.

Instead, he wants to focus more on the togetherness of the squad and, to do that, spoke to an advisor to the New Zealand rugby team. To wear the white fern of the All Blacks is considered the highest honour for the country's players, who understand that representing the nation is the pinnacle of their careers.

In a world where a money-spinning move with a bumper contract to a super-club is considered a much more enticing prospect, Southgate is keen for English players to understand that wearing the Three Lions shirt should carry the highest level of honour and prestige.

The things discussed ranged from how to inject pride back into the shirt to the famous All Blacks ‘no d***heads rule’, which is a tactic where the most cohesive team with the most positive influences is picked, rather than just a raft of big names.

One of the ways Southgate has gone about doing this is to show every member of his England squad a seven-minute video showing what it means to play for the country – and even includes the manager’s infamous Euro ’96 penalty miss at Wembley against Germany.

He has also brought back the cap-giving ceremonies, with former internationals drafted in to do the honours.

That means of the 28-man squad set to travel to Malta and Slovakia next month, debutants Nathaniel Chalobah and Harry Maguire will watch the seven-minute video and have, what Southgate hopes, a greater understanding of what it means to represent England than players of old.