Former Manchester City defender Micah Richards knows what it takes to play in the full-back position.
Throughout his playing career, the Englishman racked up 296 combined senior appearances for City, Aston Villa and Fiorentina.
Having played the majority of those games in the right-back position, Richards also made 61 appearances as a centre-back and one as a left-back.
Now though, the former England player has shared his verdict on the current defensive setup in Gareth Southgate’s side ahead of Saturday’s match against Switzerland in the quarter-finals of the 2024 European Championship, with one current City player getting a mention.
Micah Richards assesses Kyle Walker’s performance in England vs Slovakia
While assessing England’s recent 2-1 win over Slovakia, Richards had this to say about the current left-back situation in the Three Lions side and how Kyle Walker fared in the match.
He said: “They’re wanting [Kieran] Trippier to go forward and get involved in the play. I would just go and play and Trent [Alexander-Arnold] right-back and go into a three at the back and just say, just do the bare minimum like he does.
“Kyle Walker in the game against Slovakia was in positions in the first 20 minutes that he doesn’t play for Man City. He got caught out of position many times.
“All you want him to do is just, he’s best when he’s playing three at the back and he can read and go one-v-one in defending, not getting caught up the field.”
Walker was shaky against Slovakia
Looking back on England’s extra-time win against Slovakia in the knockout stage of the tournament, Walker completed the full 120 minutes, making him one of the five outfield players to do so for the Three Lions.
Having racked up 98 touches of the ball in total, the 34-year-old, who City paid £50m to sign back in 2017, lost possession 14 times in total, leaving only two other players from the starting XI to lose the ball on more occasions.
Even though he was able to make one clearance, interception and tackle, the right-back only won three of the seven duels he was involved in and was dribbled past on one occasion.
This performance ultimately earned the City captain a rather underwhelming overall match rating of 6.8/10 from SofaScore, making him the lowest-rated outfield player in the England starting XI.
Even though Bukayo Saka recently shared how tough it is to play against Walker, it can’t be denied that he had a shaky performance in his latest game at Euro 2024.
This makes it easy to see why Richards felt the City star had an off day on this particular occasion.