I’M so confident England will beat Ukraine that if I were in charge I would rest both Declan Rice and Kalvin Phillips to save them for the semi-final.
And Gareth Southgate shouldn’t stop there because he should also consider giving Harry Maguire a break so he can be key to the defence for the final week of the tournament.
All three are on yellow cards, and in the case of Maguire he is also lacking the same kind of preparation fitness-wise because of his injury.
He could easily be replaced by Tyrone Mings, who was so impressive in the first two games.
For Maguire, a rest will be perfect because it not only means he avoids a yellow card that would stop him playing the semi-final, but also means England do not accumulate fatigue in a player that didn’t prepare as well as the others have.
I would make three or four changes for this game even though it is a quarter-final, including the important defender and the two engines in midfield.
Obviously I’m looking from the outside and don’t have to work under the pressure of Gareth but I would say you don’t need Rice and Phillips to beat Ukraine.
At the most, one of them is needed but you have Jordan Henderson who is in the right condition to play and other younger players, fresh with the right conditions, desire and motivation to play
Rice and Phillips have been magnificent so far but look at the way they worked in the last match, and how Declan finished the game completely exhausted and with cramp in his legs.
Saturday’s semi- final will be much more difficult than the quarter-final.
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Ukraine played extra-time in theirs to get past Sweden so have more minutes in their legs and there is a difference of quality between both teams.
England do not need to take some of the players to extreme situations of fatigue.
Rest Rice and Phillips so they can then play the semi and the final to the maximum potential. But that’s me speaking.
Gareth has 100 per cent of responsibility and pressure on him, so I would guess he may just rest one of them, so Jordan starts with one. But don’t start with both.
England won’t have a better chance than this one to reach the final, no better conditions ever to win these two matches and to be in the final at Wembley.
Andriy Shevchenko is doing an amazing job with Ukraine.
The team is very well organised but I think they are they are on the limits of their energy, they are on the limits of their potential.
Of course, they’re doing it for their country and are going to fight for more, but I don’t think they can.
They have two groups of players, one group that is better than the other and when you miss one player, you are immediately in trouble.
You cannot make rotations and you cannot change players because when you change the potential the team is completely different.
In England’s case, it is quite a privilege, because the squad is really good, really strong.
England are confident, they know that the semi and the final is at Wembley, everybody is doing a team job. I think that everybody is doing a team job.
The team is going progressively step-by-step, Gareth never keeps the same team.
One comes in, one comes out and everybody’s performing very well.
I just think they go to the Olympic Stadium in Rome and beat Ukraine.
The final is at Wembley, so football is coming home. And England will be there.
Jose Mourinho was speaking exclusively on talkSPORT.
