Gareth Southgate reveals England's problem: No Kalvin Phillips

Gareth Southgate suggested England were missing Kalvin Phillips after their dismal 1-1 draw against Denmark.

Southgate namechecked the out-of-form midfielder after his “experiment” with playing Trent Alexander-Arnold in midfield at the European Championship failed once again.

In a damning indictment of the other options available to him, the England manager said: “We have been trying to find a solution in midfield for seven or eight years. If we hadn’t had Declan Rice, I don’t know where we’d have been. Unfortunately, Kalvin was not possible for us for this tournament.

“So, we’re trying to find something different and some of that has worked, some of that hasn’t worked so well. But, over the years, that’s been a consistent problem. We’ve tried to find the best way of solving it and we’ve got to do that in the coming weeks as well.

“They are the problems and we need to find the solutions. We need to assess the two performances and work through it together. If you allow players to pick passes then they can play passes which can hurt you.”

Phillips was the find of England’s last Euros campaign, with his performances helping earn him a big-money transfer to Manchester City the following summer.

But the move backfired spectacularly, with Pep Guardiola accusing him of being overweight – comments for which the City manager later apologised – and Phillips making just 16 appearances before being loaned to West Ham United in January.

He made the switch in the hope of playing his way into England’s Euro 2024 squad but that, too, fell flat.

Admitting playing Alexander-Arnold had been an experiment, Southgate added: “He’s had some moments where he’s delivered what we thought he would. We know it’s an experiment. “We know we don’t have a natural replacement for Kalvin Phillips. We’re trying different things and, at the moment, we’re not flowing as we’d like.”

Gary Neville suggested Rice was not good enough to play the holding role Phillips had once made his own.

“When he goes to receive the ball deep, I think he’s quite basic at that,” Neville told ITV.

Meanwhile, Southgate also lamented the absence of Luke Shaw, who is still not fit enough to start at the Euros.

“At the moment, it’s clear in terms of the balance of the team that we don’t have our best left-back available,” he said. “So that denies you the opportunity for that balance.”