Why aren’t Jack Grealish and Phil Foden playing against Germany? Gareth Southgate explains England team choice
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Gareth Southgate has indicated that Bukayo Saka‘s extra pace and performances on the training pitch were the reasons behind his selection in the England team to face Germany.
The England boss opted to switch to a back three for the last 16 clash at Wembley, with Saka partnering Raheem Sterling and captain Harry Kane up front.
The Arsenal youngster, 19, was man-of-the-match in the final group game against the Czech Republic and has retained his place in the starting XI ahead of the likes of Jack Grealish, who teed up Sterling’s winner in that match, and Phil Foden, who started the first two games.
“There’s a bit of what he did in the last game. There’s the games we’ve seen, there’s the training we’ve seen,” Southgate told the BBC before kick-off.”
“I think speed is important today. Speed in behind Germany’s defence that we feel that we’ve got. And our movement up front needs to be good enough to move their back line around a bit.”
Unlike Southgate, who has played a back four in all of England’s matches until this encounter, Germany manager Joachim Low has stuck with the same 3-4-3 system throughout Euro 2020.
Wing-backs Joshua Kimmich and Robin Gosens have been among their most dangerous players and Southgate indicated their threat was the reason he opted to match the Germans’ formation.
“The teams that have played Germany already have had big problems with the overload and their wing-backs,” the England boss said. “We’ve got to deal with that but then we’ve also got to cause them problems with our system and our focus has been as much with the ball as without it this week.
“But we did know that that tactical problem in our third of the pitch is one we had to resolve.”
