Gary Lineker and Alan Shearer agree on Liverpool star ahead of England's final game

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Euro 2024: The Liverpool defender’s form has been brought into question across the tournament so far.

Former England strikers Gary Lineker and Alan Shearer have both agreed on Liverpool star Trent Alexander-Arnold ahead of England’s final group game at Euro 2024.

Unsurprisingly, the disappointing 1-1 draw with Denmark on Thursday caused a frenzy across the English footballing world despite Gareth Southgate’s side still sitting top of group C with a two-point cushion. Alexander-Arnold started in the draw but was removed less than 10 minutes into the second-half as Conor Gallagher replaced him for a second consecutive game, throwing his potential starting role going forward into doubt.

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Alexander-Arnold shouldn’t be too despondent as he was certainly not the worst performer but the midfield looked disjointed. As a result, there has been strong calls for Southgate to ring the changes and end the Alexander-Arnold ‘midfield experiment’. It led Shearer and Lineker to agree that the midfield failed to hit the levels that were needed.

Speaking on the Rest Is Football podcast. Shearer said: “It hasn’t worked. The midfield gamble, as he put it, in terms of Trent – that I was thinking beforehand ‘okay, let’s have a look at it, let’s see if it works’ – hasn’t worked. So he has to make changes.”

However, both pundits agreed that Alexander-Arnold’s poor form cannot solely be attributed to him. Gary Lineker added: “I actually feel a little bit sorry for Trent,” with Shearer replying: “Yeah I do as well, it’s not at all his fault.”

LiverpoolWorld verdict

Having only played in midfield a handful of times for England against lower-ranked opposition (North Macedonia, Bosnia and Malta) it was surprising that he was trusted at a major tournament - he also hasn’t featured there at club level with any regularity at all.

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Plus, with the likes of Adam Wharton, Gallagher and Kobbie Mainoo all sat on the side lines, the pressure has ultimately told and it seems either one would be a more natural partner for Declan Rice, who has struggled to recreate the form he showed for Arsenal across the 2023/24 campaign.

While the final game against Slovenia is a game England should come through, the first two games have shown us that the current set-up, involving Alexander-Arnold, would surely not stand up against the likes of Spain with Rodri, Fabian Ruiz and Pedri or Germany with Toni Kroos and Ilkay Gundogan or France with their embarrassment of riches.

And now Southgate has a huge decision to make whether he sticks to his guns or he drops the Liverpool defender to help England regain control of their tournament ahead of more difficult challenges that surely lie ahead.

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