Rashford back in the England squad for the first time since Euro 2020

Marcus Rashford returned to the England squad for the first time since Euro 2020 but Manchester United teammates Jadon Sancho and Jesse Lingard missed out.

Gareth Southgate named a 25-man squad for the final World Cup qualifiers at home to Albania and away to minnows San Marino.

Rashford returned after undergoing shoulder surgery following the Euro 2020 final, but Lingard and Sancho were absent. Harry Maguire, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Reece James returned from injury for this month’s fixtures, although Kieran Trippier and Fikayo Tomori dropped out.

Jude Bellingham and Kalvin Phillips came into the midfield, while Ollie Watkins was out and Mason Greenwood was again absent.

Southgate said: “Always difficult (to pick a squad) because we’ve got so much competition for places and we had quite a few players missing last time, which means you bring others in. Then you’ve got more decisions to make.

“Also, some young players who are playing well that haven’t quite made the squad.

“So, we’ve kept a reasonable amount of consistency, really, with the groups that they were with in the summer. They did so well, we’re only five international games on from that. But also there are players pushing that group really strongly.

“Emile (Smith-Rowe), Conor Gallagher, Marc Guehi, in particular are all playing well with their clubs and to put them in we’d have to leave some of these on the sheet out.”

Tino Livramento, Tariq Lamptey and Max Aarons were also praised when the

Three Lions boss was talking about the glut of right-back options that saw AlexanderArnold come in and Trippier omitted.

“We’ve got fantastic competition for places there because Kyle (Walker) was in the team in the tournament for the Euros,” he said.

“Kieran Trippier, who we haven’t selected this time to give a bit of an opportunity to Reece (James) and to Trent.

“But Kieran has always performed brilliantly for us, has been a huge part of us getting to a World Cup semi-final and a European Championship final. He’s a player that we have so much respect for and I’m sure he’ll be back with us in the future.”

The Man United trio of Greenwood, Sancho and Lingard were the most striking omissions from Southgate’s selection.