England stars Marcus Rashford and Jack Grealish are in serious danger of missing out on the Euros 2024.
Manchester United forward Rashford must rediscover his form while Grealish has been plagued by injury which has put his place in the squad in serious jeopardy even if UEFA decides to allow nations to name 26-man squads. England boss Gareth Southgate admitted that he wanted to look at other contenders ahead of Rashford for the back-to-back friendlies with Brazil and Belgium.
Southgate names his provisional squad for the Euros on May 21 and the clock is ticking for Rashford with Bukayo Saka, Phil Foden, Cole Palmer, Anthony Gordon and potentially Jarrod Bowen ahead of him. Rshford, who was fined by United earlier in the season after going on a boozy trip to Belfast, was just a substitute against Brazil and was fit for selection against Belgium but did not get any minutes
Grealish has also been troubled by injury in a stop-start season. However, Southgate revealed he spoke to the Manchester City forward after naming his squad for the March friendlies.
Southgate said: “Jack’s definitely not out of the picture. I spoke to him before I named the squad. But as I said when I named the squad, Gordon and Bowen are pushing those guys”.
“I think Anthony Gordon has been excellent for his club. And obviously Marcus got on in the first game. But I wanted to see Gordon again. I thought James Maddison coming on would have an impact and Bowen has also had a really good camp. So there’s competition for places.”.
“I said when I named the squad there is competition for places in those wide areas. A bit of a shame that Cole Palmer missed so much training that we weren’t able to put him into the game [against Belgium] at the stage it was having missed most of the week”.
“We weren’t 100 per cent certain what we would get whereas with Gordon we knew and Maddison we knew. I wouldn’t rule Cole out of that equation.”
Southgate will name that squad well before the pre-tournament friendlies with Bosnia & Herzegovina and Iceland and it looks likely that he will name four wide forward players while Maddison might be the exception as he could be put in as a midfielder.
That means with Saka and Foden absolute certainties if they are fit and the favourites to start, there are two more places up for grabs with at least five players.