England manager Gareth Southgate has admitted his frustration at not being able to continue testing Trent Alexander-Arnold in a midfield role during the March international break.
The Liverpool star has been unavailable for selection for the Three Lions’ friendlies against both Brazil and Belgium this week due to a knee injury, with Alexander-Arnold being set to return to action after the international break after over a month out of action.
Despite being a right-back at club level, Southgate successfully played Alexander-Arnold in midfield during the November 2023 international break and had been keen to experiment further with this position change ahead of the Euro 2024.
Speaking to the press ahead of the friendly meeting with Belgium at Wembley Stadium on Tuesday evening, Southgate admitted that he was frustrated by the “missed opportunities” to give Alexander-Arnold more minutes in midfield.
“The midfield thing we’ve seen, but we’ve missed two opportunities with September and now this one that is really frustrating because there’s so much that’s unknown about it at the minute,” Southgate said.
“As you know, I’ve liked the idea for a long time but we’re going to be trialling it when we haven’t seen it in a really high level game. So we’ll just have to see where we can go with it.
“It’s such a specialist position. There’s a huge difference between playing at full-back and popping into midfield and playing in there, starting in there, in and out of position in the game, eceiving with your back to goal – there’s a lot to that. We’re just going to have to see.”
Southgate will have just one more window to play Alexander-Arnold alongside Declan Rice and Jude Bellingham in the England midfield before heading off to Germany for Euro 2024 – friendlies against Bosnia & Herzegovina and Iceland in early June.
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