Arsene Wenger believes England are closest challengers to 'super favourites' France ahead of Euro 2020
Posted Tuesday, June 08, 2021 by 101 GREAT GOALS
How will England fare at Euro 2020?
Euro 2020 is now less than a week away, with England's first clash taking place on Sunday, June 13th.
The Three Lions have been drawn in a group with Croatia – who they face on Sunday – Scotland and the Czech Republic.
On paper, England should have little issues getting out of that group.
But it is once the knockout rounds start they could begin to face some issues.
If England top Group D, they have to face 2nd place from Group F in the round of 16, which is likely to be Portugal, Germany or maybe even France.
Even if Gareth Southgate's side finished 2nd in their group, which would then see them face 2nd place in Spain's group (probably Poland or Slovakia) in the round of 16, they would then likely win that game and be forced to face France in the quarter-finals – depending on results elsewhere of course.
Wenger praises England
So, it is quite hard to see England make it past the quarter-final stages at most.
Despite this, Arsene Wenger has recently been praising England and labelled them the closest challengers to France:
"They [France] are not the favourites, they are the super favourite.
"Favourite is not big enough, because when you win the World Cup and then you have in your team, (N'Golo) Kante, (Paul) Pogba, (Karim) Benzema, (Antoine) Griezmann, (Kingsley) Coman, (Olivier) Giroud, I forget half of them. (Ousmane) Dembele.
"You will have on the bench 11 players who would play basically in any other national team. It's a team that's still going up, because they're all young these guys. Apart from two or three, the core of the team is very young."
"The closest to France for me is England, for a few reasons
"They have the highest creative potential maybe in Europe. They have a goalscorer who doesn't need many chances. He has a very good conversion rate of chances he creates. He even scores goals that are not chances. They have an amount of players with (Phil) Foden, (Mason) Mount, Grealish – I like Declan Rice as well.
"They have a midfield going forward. I find they can compete with anybody in the world."
Wenger, though, also voiced his concern over England's backline:
"The goals they conceded against Croatia in the World Cup, they are not completely mature in their defensive decisions."
"When you add all the offensive talent together, you would say that Gareth Southgate has a headache picking his forward players."
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