KOBBIE MAINOO SLAMMED BY SOUNESS FOR EURO 2024 ‘WANDER’ AS ‘IMPOSSIBLE’ DECLAN RICE STAT REVEALED

Graeme Souness has had a pop at 19-year-old midfielder Kobbie Mainoo as he “doesn’t understand his position” despite his excellent displays for England at Euro 2024.

Mainoo started the Euros on the bench but worked his way into the team after the Trent Alexander-Arnold and Conor Gallagher experiments failed.

The teenager started all four knockout games and was one of the standout players against Slovakia, Siwtzerland and the Netherlands before struggling in the final against Spain.

And Souness reckons that the United academy graduate has a lot to learn in midfield, claiming he has a tendency to “wander”. He’s 19, Graeme.

“I think he’s really good on the ball, he’s very talented on the ball,” Souness said on The Up Front podcast.

“But he doesn’t fully understand the position. He wanders, he empties the middle of the field too readily.

“I watched him against Iceland [in England’s final Euro 2024 warm-up game] and he was getting thrown to the left and thrown to the right.

“He came on as a substitute when holding onto a 1-0 lead [in the Euro 2024 opener against Serbia] and the first thing he did was chase down the goalkeeper and try to put him under pressure.

“It’s naivety, he’s still learning the game.”

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Souness also hit out at fellow England midfielder Declan Rice having done some research which revealed an “impossible” stat about the Arsenal star.

“England were at their best when they went a goal behind,” Souness added. “All of a sudden they started taking risks.

“They had to be braver and risk making a mistake, risk passing it forward or trying to play someone in.

“Instead they were just going sideways or backwards and it was driving me mad in the final, as it had done the whole tournament.

“I did some research and found that Declan Rice only completed one forward pass against Spain. One completed forward pass in 90 minutes for a midfield player… that’s impossible!”

2024-07-18T09:51:17Z dg43tfdfdgfd