Euro 2020 - Arsene Wenger tips England to be biggest challengers to 'super favourites' France
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Updated 07/06/2021 at 12:50 GMT
Arsene Wenger is backing France to win Euro 2020 and believes Les Blues are the 'super favourites'. France are the reigning world champions, but Wenger is also backing England to go far in the tournament. The pair are amongst the bookie favourites along with Belgium's golden generation and the holders Portugal.
Arsene Wenger reacts while awarding The Best FIFA Women's Coach award to Sarina Wiegman
Image credit: Eurosport
Arsene Wenger insists France are ‘super favourites’ to win Euro 2020 but tipped England to be Les Blues' biggest rivals for the trophy.
France are the reigning world champions, but England could have home advantage if they continue to progress through the competition.
Wembley will host both semi-finals and the finals of Euro 2020 and Gareth Southgate’s squad have been tipped as serious contenders after an impressive showing at the last World Cup.
Wenger, who was at the helm at Arsenal for 22 years, believes France are the huge favourites because of the depth in their squad.
“They are not the favourites, they are the super favourite,” Wenger said.
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“Favourite is not big enough, because when you win the World Cup and then you have in your team, (N'Golo) Kante, (Paul) Pogba, (Karim) Benzema, (Antoine) Griezmann, (Kingsley) Coman, (Olivier) Giroud, I forget half of them. (Ousmane) Dembele.
“You will have on the bench 11 players who would play basically in any other national team.
So you cannot refuse the fact that you are world champion and it's a team which has not peaked.
“It's a team that's still going up, because they're all young these guys. Apart from two or three, the core of the team is very young.”
Wenger is convinced England will build on their World Cup efforts and heaped praise on likes of England frontman Harry Kane and midfielder Declan Rice.
“The closest to France for me is England, for a few reasons,” he told beIN Sports.
“They have the highest creative potential maybe in Europe. They have a goalscorer who doesn’t need many chances. He has a very good conversion rate of chances he creates.
“He even scores goals that are not chances. The have an amount of players with (Phil) Foden, (Mason) Mount, Grealish – I like Declan Rice as well.
“They have a midfield going forward. I find they can compete with anybody in the world.
At the back they have not found the stability needed not to be down 1-0 in the moment where they are not dominant any more.
“The goals they conceded against Croatia in the World Cup, they are not completely mature in their defensive decisions.”
“When you add all the offensive talent together, you would say that Gareth Southgate has a headache picking his forward players.”
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Another played Wenger thinks will be vital for England is Jordan Henderson. The Liverpool skipper has been injured for several months and there has been debate about whether he should have been included in the squad.
Henderson played for the first time since February against Romania on Sunday and Wenger believes the midfielder is a key leader in the Three Lions camp.
“I hope for England when a guy like Henderson comes back because he has the hunger, he is a leader as well,” Wenger explained.
“And he has a long, good vision, a long, long vision, and it is important to find the strikers with long balls as well in big tournaments.”
England take on Croatia in their opener and will contend will Scotland and Czech Republic in Group D.
France have a much tougher group to navigate through with Hungary, France and Germany in Group F.
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