England boss Gareth Southgate attends the wrong derby after watching Leeds vs Huddersfield instead of City vs United

Gareth Southgate took a leaf out of Eddie Jones’s book by tapping into another sport in order to expand his coaching knowledge by attending the Super League match between Leeds Rhinos and Huddersfield Giants at Headingley – only he did so during one of the biggest Premier League matches of the season.

Instead of heading to the Etihad Stadium for the Manchester derby between City and United, the England manager went to the West Yorkshire derby to take in some rugby league action.

Southgate was invited to attend the match by the Rhinos Foundation, Leeds’ official charity, and the England boss was seen speaking with staff and players of the Rhinos before their 31-12 defeat by rivals Huddersfield.

Southgate has previously visited the England rugby union training base on invitation from head coach Jones in order to trade secrets and share coaching tips with the Australian, but the timing of Southgate’s latest decision to delve in to the rugby world is a bemusing one.

No fewer than seven of Southgate’s potential England players were at the Etihad Stadium, where Michael Carrick, Marcus Rashford and Raheem Sterling all started the Manchester derby, with Jesse Lingard and Ashley Young coming off the bench for United. Luke Shaw and England captain Wayne Rooney were also in the matchday squad for Jose Mourinho’s side, but failed to get off the substitutes’ bench as the manager went on the defensive following Marouane Fellaini’s red card to battle to a 0-0 draw.

England have two matches scheduled for June, firstly the 2018 World Cup qualifier against Scotland on 10 June and then the international friendly in Paris three days later against France. Given that the trip to Hampden Park to face the Scots will be a high-pressure affair, Southgate missed the chance to see how a number of his players reacted in a similar situation in the form of a Manchester derby – especially given Ander Herrera’s comments this week that the team that lost the match would be out of the top four reckoning.

In the end, neither team lost in what was a largely forgettable fixture barring Fellaini’s 18 seconds of madness, in which he picked up a yellow card for a foul on Sergio Aguero, bundled him to the ground eight seconds later to concede another free-kick and headbutted him for good measure to earn a straight red card.

But Southgate instead was able to watch the Giants bounce back from their humbling Challenge Cup exit at the hands of Championship side Swinton Lions to down Leeds, who missed the chance to go top of the Super League.

Southgate of course has form for swapping secrets with other coaches, as England rugby ‘s Jones confirmed during the Six Nations in February.

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“We had a good chat. Whenever you’ve got world class coaches in your environment there’s always an exchange of ideas and things he may be seeing as a problem for his team which may have been a problem for our team,” Jones said of Southgate attending England’s training base at Pennyhill Park.

“It’s great for the players to be able to talk to different coaches. We really enjoyed his presence. He’s probably got the biggest job in the world. He’s excited about it and I hope the excitement continues.”