England Legend disagrees with Gareth Southgate over the substitution of Trent Alexander-Arnold in the match against Serbia. Trent Alexander-Arnold was substituted with Conor Gallagher in the 70th minute in the opening match of England in the Euros 2024.
Gary Lineker has questioned Gareth Southgate’s explanation for introducing Conor Gallagher in place of Trent Alexander-Arnold in the second half of the 1-0 victory for England against Serbia.
England Statement Win against Serbia in their opening game in Euros 2024!
Jude Bellingham’s powerful header in the 13th minute of the game proved to be a decisive goal as England started their Euros 2024 campaign with a 1-0 win against Serbia. But the performance of the three lions was uninspiring on the pitch.
England were disjointed in attack and allowed Serbia to apply pressure by sitting back after the break, with Jordan Pickford forced to save a difficult ball from Dusan Vlahovic in the closing stages.
Trent Alexander-Arnold’s role has been a key talking point heading into the Euros and Gareth Southgate praised the Liverpool star’s performance in the opening game as he spoke with the BBC shortly after the final whistle at Arena AufSchalke.
What England Boss said about Trent
When asked about Alexander-Arnold’s performance with Rice and Bellingham in the midfield, Southgate had this to say:
“I have to say that he’s been really diligent in getting his positioning right, balancing off, obviously Jude goes forward a lot, so I thought Trent adapted and adjusted to his positioning really well.
He used the ball well, obviously had a good effort on goal.
In the end we wanted some fresh legs in there and Conor can obviously get to the ball quickly and we’ve got a squad and we need to use it.”
Gary Lineker opposes to this statement saying England required someone to calm things out but there was no need for fresh legs.
However, Lineker is confident England will ‘find their feet’ and feels the underwhelming performance will have little bearing on how far Southgate’s men progress in Germany.