England U21 camp will be relaxed says Gareth Southgate

England U21 manager Gareth Southgate has revealed he intends to run a relaxed camp during the European U21 Championship.

Southgate and his 23-man squad landed in the Czech Republic on Sunday to begin final preparations for their tournament opener against Portugal on Thursday.

The former England midfielder is sure his young players are responsible enough to cope with being away from home for more than two weeks and he will, therefore, not impose strict rules on them.

"Although it is a young team, you have to give them responsibility. They have never betrayed that responsibility,” said Southgate.

"I don't have a load of rules. They know they have got to be respectful, which is being on time for things and so on.

"When you have lists of rules and fines, number one, someone has to collect the bloody things. That is a problem in itself, and number two, I'm not sure that is discipline.

"That is just putting rules up. I'm not sure that means anything."

England will be based in Olomouc, the sixth largest city in the Czech Republic, although their opening training session was interrupted by a storm.

Southgate is, however, happy for his players to roam into the city centre after training and mix with the locals.

There is no chance of Southgate adopting a Fabio Capello-style ban on tomato ketchup either.

"Too right (there will be ketchup)," he said. "I'm not banning baked beans either.

"The players have got to be relaxed enough so that they play.

"I have said to them: 'look - we know internally what our objective is' – but we want this to be a good life experience for them as well.

"This is part of preparation for going into the seniors.

"We are staying in an area that is far enough out of town that we are not going to be swamped but it is close enough for them to walk in and have a cup of coffee, meet local people or go and see their families."

After taking on Portugal, England face Sweden and Italy in their two remaining group matches.

With the likes of Harry Kane, Saido Berahino, Danny Ings, Nathan Redmond and John Stones in their squad, England are among the favourites to win the tournament and Southgate is optimistic about his team's chances of success.

He said: "We have belief in them. When I look elsewhere, what I'm not seeing is countries where I go: 'We are miles behind them in youth development'."