Gareth Southgate explains why he's axed Trent Alexander-Arnold from England team

England is set to make just a single change for its crucial Euro 2024 clash against Slovenia, with Gareth Southgate dropping Trent Alexander-Arnold.

Despite calls for the inclusion of Anthony Gordon or Cole Palmer, Southgate has chosen to start Conor Gallagher in midfield, leaving Liverpool vice-captain Alexander-Arnold on the bench for Tuesday's final Group match. Southgate is expected to stick with a 4-3-3 formation, with Bukayo Saka and Phil Foden retaining their spots while Jude Bellingham will be positioned deeper alongside Gallagher and Declan Rice.

The Three Lions boss remains confident that his players can build on the positives from their first two games, without panicking or making significant changes to the line-up. The aim is to secure a win and clinch top spot in Group C.

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Southgate said: "The big risk is you have a knee jerk reaction and you move away from things that are going well. You can rip everything up and go in a completely different direction but what’s actually going well? We don’t want to lose what’s going well.

‌"Then it’s okay, how can we add to what we’re doing? Your best players are still your best players. We might not have functioned as a team as we would have liked for a large part of the second game and a half of the first game.

‌"But that doesn’t mean what we’ve been doing for the last two years in particular and the period before that, we shouldn’t be throwing everything out of the window."

Southgate has confirmed that Luke Shaw is still not fit enough for the bench, but Kieran Trippier is fully fit to start again.

Former England strikers Gary Lineker and Alan Shearer discussed Alexander-Arnold's midfielder role in the England team on the latest episode of "The Rest Is Football". Shearer said: "It hasn’t worked. The midfield gamble, as he put it, in terms of Trent - that I was thinking beforehand, 'OK, let’s have a look at it, let’s see if it works' - hasn’t worked. So he has to make changes."

Lineker replied: "I actually feel a little bit sorry for Trent."

Shearer agreed, saying: "Yeah I do as well, it's not at all his fault."