Southgate drops Rashford Euro U21s hint

Marcus Rashford could feature for England Under-21s at the 2017 European Championship, Gareth Southgate has revealed.

The Manchester United forward has made five appearances for the senior side, having scored on his debut against Australia in May, but was used sparingly during England’s poor Euro 2016 campaign.

Southgate, appointed permanent manager this week, was at the helm of the Under-21s when Rashford scored a hat-trick in the 6-1 win over Norway in September and a return to that team for the tournament in Poland could be on the cards for the 19-year-old.

“As we go forward, the summer is a good opportunity for a group of players who have worked incredibly hard to get to those finals to build on what they did in Toulon last summer,” said Southgate.

“Marcus would benefit from tournament football, but I’m conscious of his age and workload over the season. So we will assess it and work out what is best for him.

“I’m excited by the current senior squad and the players coming through our development teams, we have had a reasonable amount of success and I pretty much know all of them.

“That is great position to be in as an organisation, a great opportunity to join up everything we have done at St George’s Park, and we haven’t been able to do that before because we never had a national home or a head coach who came through the system.”