Gareth Southgate must drop Trent Alexander-Arnold and start Conor Gallagher or Kobbie Mainoo before it's too late

By Joe Townsend

16:30 · MON June 24, 2024

"Trent's had some moments where he’s delivered what we thought he would.

"It's an experiment and we know that we don’t have a natural replacement for a Kalvin Phillips, but we’re trying some different things and at the moment, we’re not flowing as we would like, that’s for sure.”

Gareth Southgate's view immediately after England's disappointing 1-1 draw with Denmark in their second Group C game at Euro 2024.

Two matches, and two early substitutions later, the Trent Alexander-Arnold experiment may very well be over.

ENGLAND FANS: You can’t just randomly start Trent at centre-mid for a tournament. He has almost never played there in his career.

SOUTHGATE:pic.twitter.com/Hn9anOEYZ0
— Paddy Power (@paddypower) June 20, 2024

England's rather uninspiring start to this tournament has reopened old wounds that I didn't realise were still there.

My formative years as an England fan were blighted by the 2002-2006 Sven Goran Eriksson era, when players consistently failed to reproduce club form for their country. Eriksson was never able to create a balanced team, forcing all his stars into an XI and hoping it would work.

It was usually utterly painful to watch, just as these two matches have been.

Southgate inherited an England team at its lowest ebb in 2016 after 10 years of failure, and a squad of limited ability. It meant expectations, and as a result pressure, was minimal. That is now far from the case.

Eriksson never learned from his mistakes in terms of who to drop, or how to get the best from his players.

Southgate has at least hinted at acknowledging his mistake of experimenting with an inexperienced central midfielder - who is ill-equipped to play the role - in a major tournament of all places, just because he is world-class right-back.

No player created more chances for England today than Trent Alexander-Arnold 🤯

He came off after 54 minutes... 👀 pic.twitter.com/hnUuiGU1v8
— ITV Football (@itvfootball) June 20, 2024

Selected with the aim of helping England control and exert more authority on games, Alexander-Arnold's inclusion has had the opposite effect.

Worse than that, perhaps blinded by what he can produce in moments - no player created more chances than he did in England's hard-fought win over Serbia - playing the Liverpool man has helped make things incredibly disjointed.

A team previously confident in who they were, produced arguably the most drab, sloppy, lethargic showing of Southgate's major tournament tenure during the draw with Denmark.

Outstanding analysis followed from Gary Lineker, Rio Ferdinand and Micah Richards, with most of it bizarrely focused on Harry Kane. Unsurprisingly, Brentford manager Thomas Frank was the only panelist to try and explain the set-up of the team, not Kane, was likely more of an issue; when he was able to squeeze a word in.

Gareth Southgate has previously been criticised for leaving out Phil Foden and Jack Grealish at different times in his England tenure

In fairness to Southgate, up until this summer he has had no issue leaving out star names in favour of team balance. Changing tack to force Alexander-Arnold in to the team just has not worked, but you can't really blame him for trying.

Having gone so close to ending England's wait for a major tournament victory without using one of the most gifted players of a generation, does it not make sense to at least try and find a way to fit him in?

For this to have been tried - and failed - and England to still be top of their group on four points is certainly positive. Southgate must now return to leaving some of his better players on the bench.

“At the moment, we’re not using the ball well enough and we have to accept that if you do that, you’re going to suffer at times like we have tonight," Southgate added.

Fair play Gareth but we've suffered enough now. Start Conor Gallagher, or Kobbie Mainoo, against Slovenia and let's all move on with our lives.

Just please don't pick Trent again.

Euro 2024: More from Sporting Life

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