England World Cup squad

Trent Alexander-Arnold, Callum Wilson and Conor Gallagher were also selected in England's 26-man World Cup squad.

We've already been hit and it could happen again but we've got to adapt and we've got good players to come in if we've lost people." "We had to basically name every English player that was available on a long list," Southgate said. All of those calls, the difficult ones and the really enjoyable ones, were a reminder of what it means to the players." But we think the balance is there. "We've had to cover a couple of players that aren't yet fully match fit so having 26 available meant we were probably able to take a couple of risks that we wouldn't have been able to with 23. "In this day and age, squad is more important than ever. I'm excited about going to a World Cup, it is my fourth and that is a privilege and an honour. "We wanted to make sure we got the balance of the squad right," Southgate added. I had some very difficult calls that were emotionally at the other end of the spectrum so it was nice to give myself a little bit of an enjoyable end to that. We'd decided a couple of weeks ago that we would but we weren't obviously going to go and tell him then. "Look, he's a good player, we've always said he's a good player. "He's playing really well," Southgate told a news conference at the squad announcement.