England will face Ukraine in the quarter-final of the European Championship and the manager has to pick his attacking players really carefully.
The Three Lions have been blessed with a plethora of world-class attacking players and this makes the job for the manager even more difficult.
In the group stages, the England boss had the chance to change and experiment with his forward players but this is the quarter-final so the right combination could prove to be the difference between a win or loss on Saturday.
Ukraine played with two frontmen in their Round of 16 game and if Andriy Shevchenko is planning to use the same tactics then Gareth Southgate is likely to field a 3-4-3 system to negate that.
And while this formation works wonders for the team but this also means a lot of attacking talents could miss out since the Three Lions will be playing narrower and mostly through the middle.
Harry Kane is the first and the guaranteed starter up front, more so since he has now found the back of the net in the tournament.
Raheem Sterling might have had an average tournament with Manchester City but he has been in great form in the Euros, scoring three goals so far. And barring fatigue or late injury, he is also going to start in the attacking third.
This means there is only one place up for grabs and as many as six players are fighting for it.
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Jadon Sancho and Marcus Rashford are available but we don’t think they will be selected on Saturday. Arsenal’s Bukayo Saka started on the right-hand side against Germany and have a great game. But the youngster is most likely to be benched in the quarter-final.
Jack Grealish turned the Round of 16 on its head after coming on as a sub in the second half and pundits are urging Gareth Southgate to use him from the start. But, we doubt if the manager is going to do that.
Since Mason Mount is available for selection after the quarantine period and he would have also trained for a couple of days with the first-team squad, it’s going to be the Chelsea man who is going to start on the right flank.
Phil Foden is one yellow card away from suspension so the manager is not going to risk using him and making him a doubt for the semi-final.
Here’s how the attack could look for England against Ukraine:
Formation via Homecrowd.
