Euro 2024: Gareth Southgate to name expanded England squad because of injury concerns
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Gareth Southgate will name his provisional England squad on 21 May
England manager Gareth Southgate says he will name an expanded initial Euro 2024 squad as Uefa says it will consider requests to reinstate 26-man squads.
Southgate will name a provisional squad on 21 May, two days after the end of the Premier League season.
Unlike the previous two tournaments that had a 26-man limit, Southgate must then reduce his squad to 23 on 7 June.
"There are so many questions on injuries," said Southgate.
"It's inevitable we're going to be naming a longer squad, which is what we did before the Euros here even though we were dealing with 26 then.
"It seems to be [settled at 23]. There is one more Uefa meeting where there's been a little bit of talk amongst some of the coaches about possibly increasing that."
Squad limits were increased from 23 to 26 for the European Championships in 2021 and the World Cup in 2022 because of the coronavirus pandemic and the risk of multiple cases of infection within a squad forcing players to isolate.
Ronald Koeman, the Netherlands manager, described Uefa's decision to reduce squad sizes for this summer's tournament as "absurd", external this week.
Uefa said it had "taken note" of comments expressed by some national team coaches on the squad size and would listen to the views of coaches at a workshop on 8 April.
Southgate was without key personnel such as Trent Alexander-Arnold and Luke Shaw for friendlies against Brazil and Belgium this week, while Kyle Walker, Harry Maguire and Harry Kane all departed the camp early with injury concerns.
The FA Cup, Europa League and Champions League finals are all to be played after Southgate names his provisional squad on 21 May, with many of his players likely to be involved and England then have two more friendlies in June.
'It's going to be complicated because [of] the injury situations that we have," said Southgate. "Some will be back playing at the weekend, some will be back playing in a couple of weeks, some will be really close to the end of the season."
End of season timeline
19 May: Premier League final day
21 May: Southgate names provisional Euro 2024 squad
22 May: Europa League final
25 May: FA Cup final
1 June: Champions League final
3 June: England v Iceland
7 June: England v Bosnia-Herzegovina
7 June (late): Deadline for final Euros squad submitted to Uefa
14 June: Euros starts
16 June: England v Serbia (20:00 BST)