Gareth Southgate explains England squad call-ups

The England boss justifies his selections of the likes of Jordan Henderson, Cole Palmer, Joe Gomez and more.

Transcript

00:00 It's good to see him playing back in a league that's probably easier to assess and of course

00:16 European football he had the game against Villa last week as well which is easier for

00:22 us to see the level he's operating at. So he's had a big influence on Ajax since he's

00:28 been there and I know they're very, very happy with him. We know what he brings, we know

00:32 the leadership he brings. I think we feel that Ivan is one of the contenders in that

00:43 role so it's important to bring him back in and be able to work with us again. He showed

00:49 straight away getting back into Brentford's team the quality and the impact that he can

00:53 have. Equally Oli is having an outstanding season with Aston Villa and is a player in

01:00 excellent form. He's shown great composure in some real pressure moments for his club

01:12 and he's adaptable, he can play in two or three different positions I think, maybe more.

01:19 So he's had an outstanding season and again is in on merit as everybody is.

01:35 Consistently good performances, he was very close in November as we said at the time.

01:42 He's continued his form, he's scoring, his work for the team is excellent, he competes

01:50 which is important. So I really like his attitude.

01:55 If you'd said to me he would play as consistently well at Premier League level as he has then

02:07 I'd have questioned that last summer. So great credit to him and to Sean that he's given

02:15 a young centre-half an opportunity. He's in on merit and we're really keen to work with

02:20 him and find out a bit more about him.

02:28 Well firstly it's great to see him playing regularly at Liverpool, it's obviously been

02:32 a couple of years since he's done that. We love working with Joe, we're delighted to

02:37 see him back playing, he is versatile. He's in very good form at this moment in time and

02:42 we look forward to seeing him next week.

02:43 [Music]

02:46 (piano chord)