Trent Alexander-Arnold hits back at Gary Lineker’s criticism by warning the next England boss

Trent Alexander-Arnold has made his feelings known about the current England manager’s situation in his response to Gary Lineker’s criticism of the Three Lions during Euro 2024.

Led by Gareth Southgate, England reached a second consecutive European final this summer, but not without their fair share of doubters along the way. The team put in a string of unconvincing performances despite topping their group, before seeing off Slovakia and Switzerland on their way to the final four.

During those group stage matches in particular, the players came under fire for poor performances, narrowly beating Serbia before going on to draw against Denmark and Slovenia. Lineker, in particular, has been very vocal with his thoughts.

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Alexander-Arnold claims the Match of the Day host’s comments helped galvanize team spirit – and admitted the players felt the same. Speaking to the Mirror, he said: “We’ve all seen it, heard it and felt it. We all knew we could play and perform better.

“It’s never nice for someone to point that out, but everyone deep down knew it, and in ourselves. So anyway, it was something we were already thinking about, we knew we had to play better. We had to add that to our performances, some players would have used that as motivation.”

However, the 25-year-old admitted that whoever the next England manager is, he will have to face the same criticism if England deliver a similar standard of performance as in the opening games in Germany.

Naturally, there are high expectations for England due to the abundance of talent in the squad, and rightly so given recent performances at the last four major international tournaments. But Alexander-Arnold admits it won’t just be the players who will be expected to feature.

“Whether that kind of criticism led to Gareth leaving, I don’t know,” said the Liverpool right-back. “Everyone has high expectations of England now and rightly so for us as players. We believe we should win tournaments, that’s the goal and the standard we’ve set ourselves. That will be there for the new manager.”

Southgate, despite his many critics suggesting otherwise, enjoyed a successful tenure with the Three Lions, even if there was no trophy. After taking charge following England’s embarrassing 2-1 defeat by Iceland in the last 16 of Euro 2016, expectations could not have been lower.

Now he has the Three Lions reaching back-to-back European finals, but it’s someone else’s turn to lead. Next up is promotion from the Nations League group, before tackling the 2026 World Cup in two years’ time – and whoever takes the reins must be prepared for the inevitable backlash if things don’t go to plan.