Gareth Southgate ‘still discussing’ final Euro 2024 squad with England staff

England boss Gareth Southgate says he has a lot to consider as he prepares to name his final Euro 2024 squad straight after Friday’s last warm-up friendly against Iceland.

The build-up to this summer’s tournament in Germany continued with Monday’s 3-0 win against Bosnia and Herzegovina at a sold-out St James’ Park.

England immediately left for London as attention turns to facing Iceland in a final friendly before kicking off their Euros campaign against Serbia on June 16th.

But Friday is about far more than their Wembley send-off as, just over an hour after the final whistle, Southgate has to cut his 33-man training group to a tournament squad of 26.

“We’re still discussing that as a staff,” Southgate said when asked about the plans around submitting his selection by UEFA’s 11pm deadline.

“In terms of Friday, obviously we have another three players (Kobbie Mainoo, Phil Foden and Kyle Walker) who report (on Tuesday) when we get down to London.

“We didn’t think there was any point in them reporting earlier and then being able to do very little and then travelling again, so we gave them an extra day.

“They’ll all come into the reckoning for the game on Friday and similar objectives, really.

“We want to build on the performance. Physically it’s an important game for players, even players that have played a lot of football.

“They still need that rhythm of playing matches, so Friday becomes an important exercise for us.”

Pushed on the practicalities of Friday and whether he will tell players after the game, Southgate said: “I’ll work that through with the staff over the next few days, and we’ll decide what we think is the best way of doing that.”

It is little wonder Southgate was coy given how much he is mulling over as he