Gareth Southgate took Harry Kane off in England’s Euro 2024 clash with Denmark because his side ‘needed fresh’ legs with Trent Alexander-Arnold also hauled off during the dismal draw.
Kane gave England the lead after 18 minutes in Frankfurt but Morten Hjulmand levelled 10 minutes before half-time with a wonderful strike from range.
England wilted from that point, repeatedly giving the ball away across the park in a lethargic display where they missed the opportunity to qualify for the knockout stages of the competition as group winners.
Kane struggled to impose himself on the game after his goal and in a shock move, Southgate opted to replace his captain after 70 minutes with Ollie Watkins onto replace him.
The Bayern Munich striker, who missed his club’s last two games of the season with a back problem, came in for scathing criticism in the immediate aftermath of the game with former England strikers Alan Shearer and Gary Lineker among those criticising his performance.
Explaining his decision to take off his captain, Southgate told BBC One: ‘We needed energy. We have had two games and we needed fresh legs, we needed energy to press.
‘And at that stage of the game… Harry has only had one 90 minutes [for Bayern] in over a month so that was the decision we took.’
Alexander-Arnold meanwhile was handed a midfield role in England’s group opener against Serbia last Sunday.
The Liverpool right-back also struggled on Thursday night, however and after a disappointing first-half, was replaced eight minutes into the second period.
Chelsea midfielder Conor Gallagher was brought onto replace him with Southgate explaining that change was also made with the intention of injecting some energy into his side’s performance.
‘We wanted to get Conor on, we needed some energy, we needed to press better,’ Southgate said.
‘Conor does that very well.’
On Alexander-Arnold, he continued: ‘He’s had some moments where he has delivered what we thought he would.
‘We know it’s an experiment and we know we don’t have a natural replacement for a Kalvin Phillips, but we are trying some different things and at the moment we are not flowing as we like.’