Prince William has presented the England squad with their shirts today after manager Gareth Southgate caused controversy with the numbers he selected for some of the players.

The squad numbers for the tournament were confirmed at the weekend with Liverpool defender Trent Alexander-Arnold handed the number eight jersey, suggesting he is poised to feature in midfield for the group opener against Serbia in Gelsenkirchen on June 16.

The move has been considered controversial as the 25-year-old has played the majority of his career as a full-back, however, Southgate prefers to use him in midfield.

The list of numbers also seems to indicate Southgate’s desire to start with Luke Shaw at left-back despite the Manchester United defender having not played a match since February due to a knee injury.

Today, Prince William met with England manager Gareth Southgate and his 26-man squad before the tournament begins on Friday.X

The men’s football team are the current favourite to win the Euro’s and Prince William, who is the head of the Football Association (FA), has travelled to St George’s Park in Burton upon Trent to wish the team luck.

The Prince of Wales spend some time with the whole team as well as Southgate and presented the 26 players with their numbered shirts.

William is known to be a football fan and often appears at Aston Villa games with his sons.

The prince revealed his love of Birmingham based football club Aston Villa to the BBC in 2015: “A long time ago at school I got into football big time. I was looking around for clubs.

“All my friends at school were either Man United fans or Chelsea fans and I didn’t want to follow the run-of-the-mill teams.

“I wanted to have a team that was more mid-table that could give me more emotional rollercoaster moments.

“Aston Villa’s always had a great history. I have got friends of mine who support Aston Villa and one of the first FA Cup games I went to was Bolton v Aston Villa back in 2000. Sadly, Villa went on to lose to Chelsea.

“It was fantastic, I sat with all the fans with my red beanie on, and I was sat with all the Brummie fans and had a great time.

“It was the atmosphere, the camaraderie and I really felt that there was something I could connect with.”

For this years Euro’s England are in Group C alongside Serbia, Slovenia and Denmark.

Gareth Southgate led England to the final of Euro 2020 during the last edition of the tournament but the squad was narrowly defeated by Italy on penalties after drawing 1-1.

England last won a major international tournament in 1966 when Sir Alfred Ramsey led his team to a World Cup victory.

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