Gareth Southgate has given his reasons behind picking Ben Chilwell over Danny Rose for England’s game against Kosovo on Sunday evening and the manager’s words might be bad news for the Spurs full-back.
Southgate made several changes to the England line up, but that didn’t stop the Three Lions from comfortably seeing off Kosovo 4-0.
One area where Southgate resisted the urge to make changes is in the full-back positions where he preferred to once again start with Trent Alexander-Arnold and Ben Chilwell over Kieran Trippier and Danny Rose.
When quizzed ahead of the game on why he chose to go with the same pair, the England manager insisted that he wanted to help both youngsters cement their spot in the side.
Speaking before the match, Southgate told ITV Sport (as relayed by Football.London), “We wanted to get the balance with some consistency from what we did in the last game.
“We knew we would make some changes, but also we want to cement some, and these [Chilwell and Liverpool’s Trent Alexander-Arnold] are both young players with not so many caps, so this sort of game is a good experience for them.”
So barring a drastic turnaround in the form of the players involved, it is likely that Chilwell and Alexander-Arnold will be the starting pair in Euro 2020 next summer. It looks like the best that Rose can probably hope for at this point is to be Chilwell’s back up.
Spurs Web Opinion
In fairness, Rose can have no complaints as his form has been quite patchy for the last two years. Ben Chilwell has progressed considerably in that time and deserves to start for England at the moment. However, I am not 100% convinced about the Leicester City man’s defensive qualities as I believe he still can be a liability against top teams.
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