Gareth Southgate's comments about ex-Leeds United man Kalvin Phillips labelled 'embarrassing' in pundit's explosive rant

Former Premier League player turned pundit Jamie O'Hara has described Gareth Southgate's comments about Kalvin Phillips as 'embarrassing'. England turned in a lacklustre performance in their second Euro 2024 group stage game as they were held to a 1-1 draw by Denmark at the Deutsche Bank Park in Frankfurt on Thursday evening.

The Three Lions found themselves overrun in midfield as Declan Rice, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Jude Bellingham struggled to deal with the Danish press and create. Southgate could be heard lamenting his side's struggles in the middle of the park after the game and the England manager put it down to being without Leeds United promotion hero Kalvin Phillips.

Phillips was dropped from the England squad in March after struggling for form and confidence in the colours of West Ham United and as a result he was overlooked by Southgate for the tournament. Previously, former Leeds man Phillips had been something of a mainstay in the England side, building up a strong partnership with Rice. He started every game of Euro 2020, played in 2021, but it is a very different story this time around.

As such after watching his side struggle to a draw with Denmark, Southgate admitted England lacked a natural replacement for the Leeds-born midfielder.

"He has had some moments where he has delivered as we thought," Southgate said when speaking about Alexander-Arnold. "It’s an experiment - we don’t have a natural replacement for Kalvin Phillips. At the moment we’re not flowing as we would like."

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O'Hara rejects the Phillips notion, though, and believes Southgate's comments underline why the Three Lions' have struggled in the tournament so far.

“Gareth Southgate has to be the most stubborn man I’ve ever known,” he told Grosvenor Sport. “I know he tells his squad not to listen to the press, but I think he actually needs to – the nation seems to know more about the team than he does. For him to come out in the interview after the game and say that England miss Kalvin Phillips is embarrassing. Is he having a laugh?

“Honestly, where’s the exit door for Southgate? It can’t come quick enough, but we’ve still got a tournament to try and win with players that should be running the show in this competition and setting the world alight. You’ve got players like Cole Palmer on the bench, who I thought was going to have a breakthrough tournament as an international player, but he doesn’t even get a minute! It’s an absolute joke.

“This manager is killing us – the way he sets the team up isn’t working. It’s all unravelling – we thought we’d learned our lesson and thought it would be different, but it’s the same old story from Southgate and England.”

England top Group C in Germany but they haven't qualified for the next round just yet and will need to beat Slovenia on Tuesday to make sure they progress as group winners and avoid the prospect of playing Germany in the round of 16.