Mainoo looks so at ease in England shirt – he should keep his place

A Mainoo-RiceBellingham axis has star quality for Euro 2024, writes Sam Cunningham

As if Gareth Southgate needed any more players vying for one of the 11 spots in his starting line-up for the first game of Euro 2024, an 18-year-old who hadn’t kicked a ball in the Premier League four months ago may have just provided the answer to a major problem in central midfield.

A significant hole has developed in Southgate’s plans due to the slow decline of Kalvin Phillips, who had provided perfect balance, alongside Declan Rice, to England’s midfield en route to the Euro 2020 final only to be swallowed up and spat out by Manchester City then unable to revive his form at West Ham.

Since then Rice has transformed into a more marauding, attackminded central midfielder who wants a slightly looser leash, following a £100m move to Arsenal. And Jude Bellingham, after signing for Real Madrid, is becoming one of the best players in the world, will be England’s No 10, but requires two midfielders behind him. How, then, to find that defensive equilibrium with the players available? It is not an easy puzzle to solve.

Jordan Henderson was a proven performer for England until he derailed his career with a disastrous move to Saudi Arabia and is barely back on track at Ajax. Such has been Phillips’s demise Southgate left him out of his latest squad, for the Euro 2024 auditions against Brazil and Belgium.

Southgate tried Conor Gallagher, excellent in a poor Chelsea team this season, against Brazil and it didn’t work

– Gallagher, a No 10 for his club, perhaps stepping on Rice and Bellingham’s toes.

It seems harsh that there would not be a place in the side for James Maddison, brilliant since moving to Tottenham. But, again, he is simply too attack-minded, and leaves England’s core brittle. Yes, it was a great assist for England’s late equaliser against Belgium after coming on from the bench, but Southgate must sacrifice Maddison for defensive solidity.

Trent Alexander-Arnold? Again, with Rice and Bellingham England’s central midfield needs a defender, not a quarter-back. The options tumbling like skittles, in strolled Kobbie Mainoo against Belgium, less than a month shy of his 19th birthday, off the back of 14 Premier League games and 15 minutes from the bench against Brazil, playing like he had been born in an England shirt. A defensive-minded player who loves to beat a man, always looks forward, is so comfortable in pockets he could play at the Crucible. There have been few more confident first starts for England from teenagers.

The dropped shoulder in the build-up to Ivan Toney winning a penalty for England’s first goal that had an entire stadium fooled. The lovely interchange with Toney down the left. The way he haunted Amadou Onana, his counterpart in Belgium’s midfield. Rushing to tackle him on the edge of Belgium’s penalty area from a goal kick before the ball fell to Bellingham, who should have scored.

By the end of the half he was nutmegging Onana with deft feet, leaving Youri Tielemans on his backside in his wake, eventually brought down to win a dangerous England free kick.

There will be nights when Onana will wake up in a cold sweat from dreams in which he is being pursued by a great white shark with the face of Mainoo.

At the break, Mainoo had completed 30 of his 33 passes,