The Sun (Malaysia)

Selection headache

Picking 23-man squad for Euro 2024 will be complicate­d, says Southgate

- Ű BY SIMON PEACH John Stones

GARETH SOUTHGATE says he is facing a “complicate­d” Euro 2024 selection choice given England’s potential fitness and availabili­ty issues heading into the summer. This is the first time since the 2018 World Cup that the 57-cap former defender is having to pick a 23-man squad for a major tournament after it was expanded to 26 following the coronaviru­s pandemic.

But Southgate could name even more than that at the provisiona­l squad announceme­nt on May 21 as the England boss will have injury concerns to deal with and the late arrival of key players.

The final squad does not have to be submitted to UEFA until June 7, but cup final participat­ion is set to dent numbers for the warm-up friendlies against Bosnia in Newcastle and Iceland at Wembley.

Asked how many extra headaches returning to a 23-man squad will throw up given the issues he is juggling, Southgate said: “Yeah, it’s going to be complicate­d, because firstly the injury situations that we have.

“Some will be back playing at the weekend, some will be back playing in a couple of weeks, some will be really close to the end of the season.

“Then we’re going to have the European finals, the FA Cup final and the two friendlies that we’ve got ourselves.

“It’s inevitable we’re going to be naming a longer squad, which is what we did before the Euros here even though we were dealing with 26 then.

“We really don’t know (how many will be in the provisiona­l squad) because there are so many questions on the injuries at the moment.

“But we’ve gained valuable informatio­n about so many players this this week.”

While Southgate is planning for a 23-strong Euros squad after absentee-hit England’s 1-0 loss to Brazil and 2-2 draw with Belgium, he revealed some coaches want a return to 26 players.

“It seems to be (settled at 23),” the England boss said. “There is one more UEFA meeting where there’s been a little bit of talk amongst some of the coaches about possibly increasing that.”

That meeting will be part of wider finalists’ workshop on

April 8 and 9 in Dusseldorf, where Southgate will not push for 26 like some other coaches but will accept it if the decision goes that way.

The England boss, who has previously said it is a “bigger skill to pick a 23”, was asked if he was in favour of a move to an expanded selection , he said with a smile:

“Well, given where we are now!

“We’ve got to make the best decisions with what we know and some of those currently are going to be medical decisions.

“And we’ve been able to get those right in the previous tournament­s. We’ve been able to give people time, but with 23 that’s definitely more difficult.”

Southgate had to experiment far more than he expected during the friendly double-header due an unpreceden­ted injury list that left him without a third of the 40-odd players on his long list against Brazil.

Bukayo Saka, Harry Kane, Harry Maguire, Kyle Walker and Sam Johnstone all withdrew from the squad over the course of the camp, with Jordan Henderson unable to feature in either match. “I had a plan on Saturday night for Tuesday that got blown apart in 12 hours, so to have a plan for something in two and a half months’ time at the moment is faintly ridiculous.” Southgate said.

“We know some of the core parts of that, we know who’s been able to play at that level, who our very best players are.

“And the rest, we’ve got a lot clearer picture of what people are capable of from the two games that we’ve played.

“We’re just going to see how people are when they come back into form, whether they can do that fitness-wise with their clubs.”

– The Independen­t

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