Gareth Southgate Clarifies The Reason For Dropping Trent Alexander-Arnold From The England Squad.
England is set to make only one change for its crucial Euro 2024 match against Slovenia, with Gareth Southgate opting to drop Trent Alexander-Arnold.
Despite calls for Anthony Gordon or Cole Palmer to be included, Southgate has decided to start Conor Gallagher in midfield, leaving Liverpool's vice-captain Alexander-Arnold on the bench for Tuesday's final Group match.
Southgate is expected to maintain a 4-3-3 formation, with Bukayo Saka and Phil Foden keeping their places, and Jude Bellingham positioned deeper alongside Gallagher and Declan Rice.
Southgate is confident that his team can build on the positives from their first two games without panicking or making major changes to the lineup. The goal is to secure a win and top Group C.
He said: "The big risk is a knee-jerk reaction that moves away from what is working well. You can tear everything up and go in a completely different direction, but what’s actually going well? We don’t want to lose what’s working."
He added, "Then it's about how we can improve what we’re doing. Your best players remain your best players. We might not have functioned as a team as we would have liked for much of the second game and half of the first game, but that doesn’t mean we should abandon everything we've been doing for the last two years."
Southgate confirmed that Luke Shaw is still not fit enough for the bench, but Kieran Trippier is fully fit to start again.
Former England strikers Gary Lineker and Alan Shearer discussed Alexander-Arnold's midfield role on the latest episode of "The Rest Is Football." Shearer said, "It hasn’t worked. The midfield experiment with Trent – which I initially thought was worth a try – hasn’t worked. So he has to make changes." Lineker responded, "I actually feel a little bit sorry for Trent." Shearer agreed, saying, "Yes, I do too; it's not his fault at all."
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