England national team manager Gareth Southgate has stated that Manchester United defender Chris Smalling’s passing is not up to the desired quality.
Gareth Southgate named his England squad for the Three Lions’ upcoming friendly encounters against Brazil and Germany, and the 47-year-old certainly made a number of surprise decisions in regards to his team selection.
In particular, the omission of defender Chris Smalling from the squad has left many baffled as the defender has been in fine form for his club side Manchester United over the past few weeks or so.
Southgate spoke about why he decided not to include Smalling in the squad and stated that the defender’s lack of quality to play the ball out from the back compared to the likes of John Stones, Eric Dier and Harry Maguire led to the 27-year-old’s omission.
Southgate said, “No, I think he can. We have players like Stones and (Eric) Dier and Maguire who are even better. Chris has got 30 caps, he plays for Manchester United, so I know what he can do. The other guys I want to see and want to look at and that’s an important part of how we want to play, building from there.
“That’s probably the toughest call I’ve had to make because of the team that Chris is playing for and the fact he’s playing and keeping clean sheets.
“We had the best defensive record in Europe in qualifying. But we’re nowhere near the highest scorers and so we’ve got to address that. Part of that is being able to build and create chances.”
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