England face Iceland at Wembley on Friday for their final warmup game before flying to Germany and taking on Serbia to begin their European Championship campaign
England have confirmed that Tottenham star James Maddison and Liverpool midfielder Curtis Jones won’t be in Gareth Southgate’s final squad for Euro 2024.
Ahead of UEFA’s 11pm deadline on Friday, shortly after the Three Lions face Iceland at Wembley, Southgate has cut his training squad down to 31 players. Both Maddison and Jones have already left the camp.
England announced their departures on Thursday morning while confirming that only 27 players will train at full capacity ahead of the Iceland game. Naming Harry Maguire, Luke Shaw and Lewis Dunk as players on individual training programmes, the final player missing is Jude Bellingham, who won the Champions League with Real Madrid last Saturday.
Those four are likely to be in Southgate’s final 26-man squad. It emerged earlier on Thursday that promising Liverpool centre-back Jarell Quansah, who remains uncapped at senior level, will miss out.
Highly-rated Everton defender Jarrad Branthwaite could suffer the same fate while Brentford striker Ivan Toney is set to be given one last chance against Iceland. Southgate will also drop one goalkeeper, expected to be Burnley’s James Trafford or Crystal Palace shot-stopper Dean Henderson.
England are currently training at Tottenham’s base in Enfield. Kick-off against Iceland will be at 7:45pm and captain Harry Kane is in line to start.
Speaking after the Three Lions beat Bosnia-Herzegovina 3-0 on Monday at Newcastle’s St James’ Park, Southgate told Channel 4: “Our plan [with Kane] today was half an hour. He will start on Friday and he looks in good shape.
Your turn! Who else should Gareth Southgate drop from his squad? Let us know your picks in the comments section
“The great thing is we have got through the last few days with no big problems. That’s really important, we needed to get through these few matches.
“I may have a few more selection headaches after tonight but that’s a good thing. I would rather we had good performances that caused you to think than poor performances. There were lots of individual things I was really pleased with.”
On selecting his final squad, which doesn’t strictly have to be made up of 26 players, Southgate added: “We have to balance the needs in every area of the pitch, that is the complication, not just getting the best individuals in. There’s a positional element. We are spinning a lot of plates to get player minutes.
“We understand the significance for all the players and we give it the respect and consideration it deserves to make fair and right decisions. It will always be subjective. Tonight was a good night for us.”
England’s first game of Euro 2024 is against Serbia on Sunday, June 16. The Three Lions then face Denmark and Slovenia.
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