Gareth Southgate has announced his England squad for World Cup qualifiers against Malta and Slovenia but fans are surprised about Redmond’s absence.
Southampton’s Nathan Redmond in action with Leicester City’s Robert Huth
Southampton’s Nathan Redmond has been denied a place in Gareth Southgate’s England squad despite the interim manager making an appearance at the King Power Stadium when the Saints played Leicester City this weekend.
Southgate passed up opportunities to observe players at Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal and Tottenham in favour of watching the mid-table clash on Sunday.
But many fans have called into question the omission of several players from the squad, especially that of Nathan Redmond who has history with Southgate, the U21 manager, during his early international career.
England interim manager Gareth Southgate during the press conference
Here’s some of the reaction on Twitter:
Redmond played the full 90 minutes on Sunday, completing 89 per cent of his passes and unleashing his only shot straight at goal forcing Kasper Schmeichel to make a low save.
The Birmingham-born winger scored nine goals in his 31 appearances for the U21 England squad and has been involved in international fixtures since he first appeared for England’s under-16 team in 2009.
Southampton’s Nathan Redmond
Southgate spoke to TheFA.com in an effort to justify his decision, stating: “We’ve tried to keep some continuity from last month because my view would be that there are a lot of things that have been going right.
“We’ve had a few people unavailable through injury like Harry Kane and Jack Butland, and we’ve lost a coupld over the weekend in Danny Drinkwater, Adam Lallana and Nathaniel Clyne while Luke Shaw isn’t quite back fit yet. That’s had a bearing on the squad.”
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