Former Super Eagles and Chelsea midfielder, John Mikel Obi, has criticized the coach of the England National team for excluding Marcus Rashford from his EURO 2024 squad, Soccernet.ng reports.
Rashford, like his club teammate, Jadon Sancho, suffered a dip in form this season. The former racked up seven goals in all competitions for Manchester United, while the latter hopped off to Borussia Dortmund to rejuvenate his career after falling out with Erik Ten Hag.
Mikel, who won the UEFA Champions League and the Europa League with Chelsea, believes Southgate made the wrong choice by excluding the Manchester United duo from his EURO 2024 team.
“There’s no Marcus Rashford, there’s no Jadon Sancho, those are big calls, are England going to regret that? Marcus Rashford has played for England, and he’s an established international player, sometimes in these tournaments you have to take out the performance throughout the season, it comes down to experience, and who has done it,” the 2013 AFCON winner said on TalkSPORT.
Southgate opted for attacking options like Cole Palmer, Phil Foden, and Bukayo Saka, leaving out a natural left winger in Sterling, Sancho or Rashford, and for Mikel, that's a completely wrong decision.
“He’s done it at the international level, in my opinion, I thought it was the wrong decision because you go into this tournament and it just clicks for that player all of a sudden because he’s been there, he’s done it. He’s played in these kinds of games, he knows how to play these kinds of games. Is that going to be a big call? Because when Rashford is on fire, he plays really well, so we’ll wait and see,” the Olympic bronze medallist concluded.
England kick off their EURO 2024 campaign against Serbia on the 16th of June. The Three Lions will also face Slovenia and Denmark in their group.
