Gareth Southgate’s unpopular decision will anger England fans

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Gareth Southgate has revealed that he has no plans to drop Harry Maguire for England.

Southgate is even willing to put his reputation at stake by playing the out of form Maguire. With Man United dropping Maguire after a poor start to the season and then replacing him with a centre-back partnership of Raphael Varane and Lisandro Martinez, it looked likely that Maguire will also lose his place in the England team.

Since taking over the reigns of the England team, Maguire is one of the most used players by Southgate, which shows his trust in the Man United centre-back.

Talking to the press, Gareth Southgate said:

“Clearly, it’s not an ideal situation,” he said.

“We’re only a few weeks on from pre-season so, physically, if they’ve had a few 90 minutes, that’s fine. Another seven to eight weeks, that does start to become more complicated.

“But he is an important player for us and it’s important to back our best players. Whatever reputation I have, I’m putting it on there.

“He is our most dominant aerial centre-back. Him and John [Stones] are incredible with the ball. The amount of pressure they have taken for the team in tournaments because we don’t always have that midfield pivot player who can progress the game – it means there is a huge amount more pressure on our centre-backs to use the ball well and those two are as good as any in world football at doing that.”

England are set to face Italy and Germany in back to back games in the UEFA Nations League.

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