Marcus Rashford Euro 2024 omission was the ‘wrong decision’, claims Chelsea Champions League winner

Marcus Rashford’s exclusion from England’s Euro 2024 squad was the ‘wrong decision’ by Gareth Southgate.

That’s the view of former Chelsea star John Obi Mikel, who insists that the Manchester United forward’s international experience would have been invaluable.

Following an underwhelming season at United, Rashford was left out of Southgate’s 33-man preliminary squad, which will be cut down to 26 players for the tournament in Germany.

The 26-year-old has 60 caps to his name for the Three Lions and has scored 17 goals for his country but won’t play at Euro 2024.

Such a decision is one that former Nigeria international Mikel has questioned if England will regret in the coming weeks given his past experience in major tournaments.

Speaking exclusively to talkSPORT, he said: “There’s no Marcus Rashford, there’s no Jadon Sancho, those are big calls, are England going to regret that?

“Marcus Rashford has played for England, he’s an established international player, sometimes in these tournaments you have to take out the performance throughout the season, it comes down to experience, who has done it.

“He’s done it at the international level, in my opinion, I thought it was the wrong decision because… you go into this tournament and it just clicks for that player all of a sudden, because he’s been there, he’s done it.

“He’s played in these kind of games, he knows how to play these kind of games. Is that going to be a big call? Because when Rashford is on fire, he plays really well, so we’ll wait and see.”

Rashford scored eight goals in all competitions for United this season, a far cry from the his tally of 30 in the 2022/23 campaign.

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Southgate explained his reasoning for the decision upon the announcement of the squad: “These are difficult calls.

“With Marcus I just feel other players in that area have had better seasons. It’s as simple as that.”

Rashford also took to Instagram to wish his colleagues luck for the summer: “Wishing Gareth and the boys all the best for the up and coming tournament.”

He has previously played at four major tournaments for England, two World Cups and two Euros.

The winger featured in six of their eight qualifying matches, scoring in wins against North Macedonia and Italy to secure their spot in Germany.

But he won’t feature at Euro 2024, with England kicking off their preparations for the tournament with a 3-0 friendly win over Bosnia and Herzegovina on Monday night.