England defender Luke Shaw says that he and his team-mates are annoyed that team news keeps getting leaked by the press ahead of World Cup matches.
The Three Lions beat Senegal 3-0 in the last 16 to set up a quarter-final against France on Saturday after they cruised through their group.
With England facing Kylian Mbappe at the weekend, there has been lots of speculation over how England will line-up to combat the France forward’s threat.
The public have known the England team for all four matches up to now before the official team news has been announced, with the media releasing snippets of information about who has made the team.
And Shaw has revealed that it has left the England dressing room frustrated as it could “give other teams an advantage”.
“For some reason, our team is out every game day before anything, so I’m sure everyone is going to find out like normal. It seems to get leaked every time we play,” Shaw told BBC Sport.
“Of course it annoys us when that happens. You can guess some players that are going to play, but sometimes if people get changed and it is out there before the team actually gets announced it can give the opposing team an advantage.
“That is something we all speak about. We don’t understand why the English media would leak that to give other teams an advantage.
“There is nothing we can do about it because it has been happening for a long time, but we’ve got a couple more days to focus more on details about what France are going to do and we’ll go from there.”
Former Liverpool left-back Stephen Warnock, who earned two England caps during his career, agrees with Shaw that team leaks are a major frustration in football.
Warnock said: “Teams being leaked is one of the biggest problems in football. You will get players who ring their mates or agents, whoever it might be. There is always someone who wants to be in the know so they will pass it on.
“If I’m being completely honest I look at it and think ‘we all know the players, what is going to change?’. What is the big difference?
“I could probably tell you very close to the team that Gareth Southgate is going to pick in a couple of days, but if I looked at it and I went it might be him or it might be him. If you look at rugby, they announce it the day before.
“I couldn’t believe it the other day when I saw ‘Breaking news: Saka is going to replace Rashford’. It is a World Cup – does it matter? Is it that much of a surprise that you’re replacing him with Saka?
“Come on. I get it to a certain degree with formations but otherwise, I don’t think it is that much of an issue.”
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