England get their Euro 2024 campaign underway at 8pm on Sunday as they take on Serbia in Group C.
Gareth Southgate has a week to get his team ready for their opening game and his first task will be to analyse what went wrong against Iceland on Friday night and make sure that's all dealt with and put to bed before they get underway in games that actually matter.
Both of Newcastle United's England representatives started that game against Iceland with Kieran Trippier starting at left-back and Anthony Gordon in front of him on the left of the attack.
Gordon was probably England's best player in the first half, constantly striving to make things happen for the Three Lions.
On this week's The Rest Is Football Podcast, Gary Lineker, Alan Shearer and Micah Richards pick their starting eleven for the game on Sunday and while all three agreed that Kieran Trippier should start at left-back, only two picked Anthony Gordon to start. Kind of.
Gary Lineker got things underway by giving his reasons for picking Gordon.
"I'm going with your man, Al, Anthony Gordon on the left. I think he's been absolutely fantastic. He's dangerous and can cause problems."
While Alan Shearer, unsurprisingly, agreed that Gordon should start.
"I think 'cause of his work rate the way he's able to get back and help the fullback out as well, Anthony Gordon, as well as doing his stuff in forward positions. He's just been brilliant for Newcastle this season so he would be starting on the left for me, yeah."
But Big Meeks had other ideas. Well, not really. He wanted to pick Gordon but he realised that all three had picked the exact same players, so to mix things up it was poor AG10 who got the chop from Richards' team in favour of Cole Palmer.
"I've been talking about Gordon all season. In fairness to him, since he won the U21s tournament, got Player of the Tournament, he was playing as a false nine at times. I would play him on the left, he brings balance to the team. I'm not going to pick him because it would be boring. I'm going to put Cole Palmer on the left. Rotation, rotation. Gordon would have been in my XI but to change things up I'm going with Cole Palmer on the left."
PL | GD | PTS | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
1 |
Liverpool
|
10 | 13 | 25 |
2 |
Manchester City
|
10 | 10 | 23 |
3 |
Nottingham Forest
|
10 | 7 | 19 |
4 |
Chelsea
|
10 | 8 | 18 |
5 |
Arsenal
|
10 | 6 | 18 |
6 |
Aston Villa
|
10 | 2 | 18 |
7 |
Tottenham Hotspur
|
10 | 11 | 16 |
8 |
Brighton
|
10 | 3 | 16 |
9 |
Bournemouth
|
10 | 1 | 15 |
10 |
Newcastle United
|
10 | 0 | 15 |
11 |
Brentford
|
9 | 0 | 13 |
12 |
Fulham
|
9 | 0 | 12 |
13 |
Manchester United
|
10 | -3 | 12 |
14 |
West Ham United
|
10 | -6 | 11 |
15 |
Leicester
|
10 | -4 | 10 |
16 |
Everton
|
10 | -7 | 9 |
17 |
Crystal Palace
|
10 | -5 | 7 |
18 |
Ipswich
|
10 | -11 | 5 |
19 |
Southampton
|
10 | -12 | 4 |
20 |
Wolves
|
10 | -13 | 3 |