Arsenal legend Ian Wright identifies England’s major weakness Gareth Southgate must fix ahead of Euro 2024
IAN WRIGHT has pinpointed England’s defence as the pitfall that could see them miss out on European glory, but insists “our team is good enough” to come out triumphant.
Gareth Southgate revealed his initial 33-man squad ahead of the European Championships this summer, and a lack of qualitative depth in the defensive area was obvious for all to see.
Speaking exclusively to SunSport the Arsenal and England legend explained: “Obviously our defence is something he’s going to have to sort out.”
Among the defenders listed in the squad, Harry Maguire, John Stones, Luke Shaw and Kieran Trippier have all struggled with injury of late – with the two centre-halves most favoured not having played football since the end of April.
Gareth Southgate was not optimistic on Luke Shaw being fit for the tournament either, admitting it is a “long shot” to make the trimmed squad next month, despite admitting the player is his “first choice” in that position.
This could see Trippier start in the left-back role, with Joe Gomez as his deputy, both of which are right-footed and preferring to play on the other flank.
Despite this, Wrighty remained positive about the Three Lions’ hopes for the tournament, insisting that England have quality attacking talent and the best players in three of Europe’s top five leagues:
“When we’re looking at how some of our players are performing – Harry Kane, amazing, top scorer in Germany, Jude Bellingham in Spain, Phil Foden and Cole Palmer we are seeing unbelievable football from.
“So yeah I am very much always going for England, especially with the last few tournaments as semi-finalists, at least with what we’ve got so I’m not gonna back off from that – it’s not just that I want England to do it, our team is good enough.”
While imploring that he would “love football to come home”, Arsenal’s second all-time top scorer highlighted the notable competition and named a strong nation that could stand in Southgate’s way.
He added: “If I’m being totally honest you have to look at France as one of the favourites, but we are in amongst it and what you’ve got to understand is when you go to a tournament it’s not about playing unbelievable scintillating football, it’s about getting to the next game and the next phase.
“What you want is experienced players who have been in that situation who know how to play tournament football and we do now, we’ve been to finals and semi-finals in big tournaments so there is no real excuse for us.”
Meanwhile, Wright spoke at length about the importance of investing in grassroots football in the men’s and women’s game, and was presented with the inaugural FC Futures Hero Award as well as a £10,000 grant for a footballing charity of his choice.
He said: “It’s an honour to be the recipient of the first FC FUTURES Hero Award and I take great pride in seeing the strides the initiative has made around the world in the past year.”
Ian Wright was speaking at the one year anniversary of EA Sports’ FC Futures initiative. EA have teamed up with Unicef and Soccer Aid to invest in grassroots football and grow the game for all.