Southgate: I’ll mix it up to keep balance
GARETH SOUTHGATE is ready to make wholesale changes for England’s trip to Denmark after admitting his team is seriously short of match fitness.
Southgate said it will be important to “keep the balance” between experience and freshness as many of his England stars did not even start pre-season training before joining up with England.
He hinted he might stick with captain Harry Kane despite his rustiness but is set to experiment with a 3-4-3 formation as he considers it for next year’s European Championships.
That could mean chances for Conor Coady and Ainsley Maitland-Niles while there will be reshuffles in other areas with Nick Pope, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Mason Greenwood and Tyrone Mings hoping for a chance.
Aston Villa’s Jack Grealish is also in contention but did miss two days’ worth of training last week with a niggling injury which may mean he doesn’t start but comes on.
Southgate said: “The most important thing over the next few days will be to really assess who can do that, what gives us the freshness but keeps enough experience, to keep the balance right.
“Energy will be key. It is impossible to expect them to be at their best, given not only the time since their last competitive games but also the shortage of training minutes.”
Southgate says he’ll “assess” the keepers before tomorrow but added: “We can’t just be rigid. We don’t want to just stick to one way of playing if we’re knocking on the door and not really getting the number of shots of goal we wanted.”