Trent Alexander Arnold and Fikayo Tomori will not play a single minute for England in the international break after Gareth Southgate left the pair out of the squad to face Germany.
The pair missed out alongside James Ward Prowse and Jarrod Bowen, whilst Jack Grealish is suspended after picking up a yellow card during England’s disappointing 1-0 defeat by Italy.
Alexander Arnold’s omission surprised a few as the Liverpool man is regarded as one of the finest full backs in world football despite his difficult start to the season.
Southgate has a range of right backs to choose from as the likes of Kyle Walker, Reece James and Kieran Trippier seem to be ahead of Alexander Arnold in the pecking order.
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During the match against Italy, many fans were calling for Southgate to bring on Alexander Arnold to inject some much needed creativity into the team.
Many fans reacted to Southgate’s latest decision on social media.
One fan said: “Lol and I'm supposed to believe Southgate has brought team togetherness when he only picks media favourites?”
Another tweeted: “Whatever about TAA, leaving out Tomori when you're starting Maguire is criminal.”
A third fan added: “Is Tomori injured then? If not it's a ridiculous decision to leave Tomori out.”
Southgate is under intense pressure due to his team's poor run of form ahead of the World Cup in Qatar, which kicks off in November.
After the defeat by Italy, Southgate insisted there were positive.
He said: “It's difficult for me to be too critical of the performance. We had more possession, more shots, more shots on target. For large parts of the game we played very well. We didn't deal with the decisive moment defensively and we had moments where we could have been more decisive in their final third.
“Our quality wasn't quite right. It's a spell where ultimately results are going to be everything everyone reacts to but I thought there were lots of positive signs for us as a team. There were lots of good individual performances. The performance was a step in the right direction. But I completely understand that isn't going to be the reaction externally.”
England's first game of the World Cup will be against Iran on November 21.
Topics: England, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Fikayo Tomori
Marcus Chan