Roy Hodgson Proud Of Attack-Minded Euro 2016 Squad

England boss Roy Hodgson is confident his young, attack-minded squad will have the balance required for Euro 2016 and hopes Marcus Rashford will show his “special qualities” in France.

England’s final 23-man squad features five attackers, eight midfielders, seven defenders and three goalkeepers after Hodgson opted to cut Danny Drinkwater, Andros Townsend and Fabian Delph from the provisional squad.

There had only been three specialist centre-backs in the initial selection, along with the versatile defensive midfielder Eric Dier, and concerns have been raised that there is little defensive cover in the case of injuries or suspensions.

Hodgson told a news conference ahead of Thursday’s friendly with Portugal that he was satisfied that the “balance is good,” even if he acknowledges he has had to make sacrifices in terms of providing cover.

“It does tilt towards youth and attackers,” he said. “We think we have a lot of players in that area who are really good enough and I wouldn’t have been happy leaving them behind to bring in players to shore up areas in case of this, that or the other.

“I’m perfectly satisfied that the 23 chosen has been chosen after careful thought and careful deliberation.”

The midfielders Hodgson did select in the final squad include Dele Alli, Ross Barkley and Raheem Sterling, who are all attack-minded, but he said: “We believe defending is a team job. It goes right from the front.”

He said he had made the decision to leave out Leicester midfielder Drinkwater, who won his third cap against Australia, because others were more established in the squad and added: “Danny was a tough one to leave out.

“He’s had a very, very good season. It simply became a question of ‘Do I take the extra attacker or the extra midfield player?'”

He added: “It was a very difficult decision. For a long period of time, if anything, we haven’t had an enormous amount of choice and sometimes there have been comments that we don’t have enough players to pick from.

“Suddenly we do have a lot of players to pick from and it was a very tough decision for me.

“I was very happy with the 26, I was delighted with the way the three guys who didn’t get selected for the final 23 worked and yesterday was a difficult day for me having to tell them they weren’t going to be in the final 23.

“But I must say the players were fantastic, they were unbelievably understanding of the need that I had to make a decision. They ended by wishing everybody well and that they had enjoyed the preparation time. They made the job as easy for me as it could possibly be.”