England National Team Manager Has A Chance To Kick Out A Shining Central Player This Season

Marcus Rashford has annoyed Gareth Southgate (Instagram/@england).

JAKARTA - Gareth Southgate is still selecting which players deserve to enter the England national team to fight at Euro 2024.

However, the manager has a reputation for sticking to his favorite players rather than giving other players the opportunity who are in good form in the league.

In fact, England is being flooded with a new golden generation that is starting to stick out at the club. Call it Kobbie Mainoo and Ivan Toney.

Not to mention Marcus Rashford started showing off at Manchester United. However, players who have scored 17 goals in 60 games with the Three Lions have annoyed Southgate.

Since the start of this season, Rashford's performance has been inconsistent with the manager kicking him several times.

Luckily, he had proven his feasibility to enter the England national team. He was good at the friendly against Scotland (3-1) in September 2023 and scored against Italy (3-10 a month later.

Since then, Rashford has continued to fight with Manchester United and began to steal the show. However, the 26-year-old striker again disappointed Southgate.

He was caught leaving without a permit to Belfast in January, including drinking another drink. Not surprisingly, Southgate is still marginalizing Rashford from the England national team's main squad.

The Manchester United player only appeared as a substitute in the 75th minute when they lost 0-1 to Brazil in a test match.

Rashford also appeared disappointing as a substitute for the Three Lions against Belgium which ended 2-2.

When asked about Rashford, Southgate shifted the conversation. Instead, he put Anthony Gordon forward.

"I want to see Anthony Gordon. I think he performed great for his club. However, I want to meet Gordon again."

"I think James Maddison's entry will be able to have an influence and of course Jarrod Bowen also has a very good performance."

"So, there is competition to get a place. It's a shame Cole Palmer missed so many exercises that we couldn't play him in the game against Belgium. I'm also not going to rule Cole out of that equation," Southgate said.

Well, things are different when he talks about Jack Grealish. In fact, the Manchester City player has already missed two friendly matches due to a groin injury.

However, Southgate still seems to have chosen Grealish as the main pillar of the England national team.

"He obviously didn't get out of my projection. I spoke to him before I mentioned his squad's name."

"I don't think he's physically ready. He's back in training, but I don't think for this match he's going to be at a physically competitive level."

So far, Southgate is still trying to get to UEFA to increase the number of squads at Euro 2024 from 23 players to 26 players.

If still 23 players, he seems more inclined to bring Harry Kane and Ivan Toney.

If it can increase to 26 players, there are opportunities for Rashford and totaling Watkins to enter. It's just that, both are not a priority.

Again, Southgate only chooses its favorite players. The proof is that Kalvin Philips, who has not performed well during his loan spell at West Ham, was forced into the squad.

Then, Ajax's new player, Jordan Henderson, even had more chances than Rashford because of his experience.

Not only that, Southgate is definitely still bringing Raheem Sterling who has a lot of experience performing at the Euros. Moreover, he was the best England player in the same tournament three years ago and has a lot of experience with 82 caps.

"Yes. You know some of them we've been monitoring for some time. One or two people have passed a huge test very, very strong."

"We were thinking if we did the right thing by playing two big games because it made it much more challenging."

"However, we know more about the players who have done that. We will prepare well for a tournament and give everything we have to get the best results."

"We don't have players for a long time. We need to keep pushing to improve as a team and uncover our shortcomings," Southgate said.

Meanwhile, Rashford isn't the only one Southgate looks badly at. Lewis Dunk, Conor Gallagher, and Ben Chilwell also experienced the same thing.

Wayne Rooney, Joe Hart, Jack Wilshere, Chris Smalling, and Dele Alli can also witness how Southgate chooses players. The manager often doesn't care about players who are in a big reputation to join the England Team squad.

Apart from that, Southgate is confirmed to have crossed out John Stones (16 months) and Kyle Walker (15 months) who suffered a long injury.