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Southgate Says He Hasn’t Made Decision on Grealish for Euros Squad 

Football - International Friendly - England Training - Rockliffe Park, Middlesbrough, Britain - June 2, 2024 England manager Gareth Southgate during training. (Action Images via Reuters)
Football - International Friendly - England Training - Rockliffe Park, Middlesbrough, Britain - June 2, 2024 England manager Gareth Southgate during training. (Action Images via Reuters)
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Southgate Says He Hasn’t Made Decision on Grealish for Euros Squad 

Football - International Friendly - England Training - Rockliffe Park, Middlesbrough, Britain - June 2, 2024 England manager Gareth Southgate during training. (Action Images via Reuters)
Football - International Friendly - England Training - Rockliffe Park, Middlesbrough, Britain - June 2, 2024 England manager Gareth Southgate during training. (Action Images via Reuters)

England manager Gareth Southgate is still weighing up the attacking options for his Euro 2024 squad and said that while Jack Grealish has not played as much as he would have liked this season, he is still in the running to make the cut.

Marcus Rashford was left out of the provisional 33-man squad for Germany and there has been talk that Grealish could be the next big name axed with Southgate set to cut the squad to 26 players by June 7.

Grealish made just 20 Premier League appearances for Manchester City this season, scoring three goals, and was an unused substitute in their FA Cup final defeat by Manchester United last month.

Asked if Grealish was in danger of missing out, Southgate said: "I don't think we're defining that just yet. I think we know where we're likely to be.

"I haven't talked to him specifically about the Cup final. But he has been really bright and he loves being here.

"This season he has not played as much. I'm sure he would have liked that to be different but we know the qualities he can bring. He is a player we enjoy working with."

Southgate added there was time for people to impress in friendlies against Bosnia and Herzegovina and Iceland this week.

The likes of James Maddison, Eberechi Eze, Cole Palmer and Jarrod Bowen are all pushing for berths in the squad and Southgate said he had not settled on how many attacking players he would need.

"What we don't totally know is how many we need to take or how many we can allow ourselves to take because of the cover we might need in other positions as well," he added.

England host Bosnia at St. James' Park later on Monday and Iceland at Wembley on Friday before opening their Euro 2024 campaign on June 16 against Serbia in Group C.

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Al Rajhi Takes over Dakar Rally Lead after Miserable Stage for Lategan

Driver Yazeed Al Rajhi and co-driver Timo Gottschalk compete during the ninth stage of the Dakar Rally between Riyadh and Haradh, Saudi Arabia, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025. (AP)
Driver Yazeed Al Rajhi and co-driver Timo Gottschalk compete during the ninth stage of the Dakar Rally between Riyadh and Haradh, Saudi Arabia, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025. (AP)
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Al Rajhi Takes over Dakar Rally Lead after Miserable Stage for Lategan

Driver Yazeed Al Rajhi and co-driver Timo Gottschalk compete during the ninth stage of the Dakar Rally between Riyadh and Haradh, Saudi Arabia, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025. (AP)
Driver Yazeed Al Rajhi and co-driver Timo Gottschalk compete during the ninth stage of the Dakar Rally between Riyadh and Haradh, Saudi Arabia, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025. (AP)

Local driver Yazeed Al Rajhi took advantage of a miserable stage by South Africa's Henk Lategan to grab the Dakar Rally lead in the Saudi Arabia desert on Tuesday.

Lategan led the Dakar for the past week, but errors and bad luck on the 357-kilometer ninth stage from Riyadh south-east to Haradh turned his overall lead of more than five minutes over Al Rajhi into a potentially decisive seven-minute deficit.

The rally has effectively two days and 400 kilometers remaining in the dunes of the Empty Quarter. The last day, Friday, is a ceremonial drive to the finish line in Shubaytah.

Al Rajhi, like Lategan, has never won the Dakar. This is the Saudi's 11th attempt with a best finish of third in 2022. He'd been lying second since last Wednesday. The title race appears to be between only them.

Third-placed Mattias Ekström of Sweden and five-time champion Nasser Al-Attiyah of Qatar were about 25 minutes behind.

“It's a bit of disaster to be honest,” Lategan said. “About 13 kilometers in we got lost. We thought we missed the waypoint but we actually had it. When we got lost we got one puncture and then towards the end we got another one and the wheel is actually flat. So, it was a messy, messy, messy day for us but it's not the end of the world, we're still in it.”

Lategan and navigator Brett Cummings were 11th on the stage and Al Rajhi and Timo Gottschalk third.

“We did a great job like we planned to,” Al Rajhi said. “We pushed well. We enjoyed it, that's the most important. I hope everything goes well the next two or three days to win the Dakar ... I will fight to win. It won't be easy.”

Al-Attiyah won the stage ahead of Belgium’s Guillaume de Mévius in under three hours to rise to one minute off third place overall.

His 49th car stage win, and first in the Dakar for Romanian manufacturer Dacia, lifted him to only one behind the record jointly held by Finland's Ari Vatanen and France's Stephane Peterhansel.

Sanders cushions motorbike lead Australian rider Daniel Sanders bolstered his motorbike lead to nearly 15 minutes when closest challenger, Spain's Tosha Schareina, crashed early.

The back wheel of Schareina's Honda hit a rock and sent him flying only 20 kilometers in. He resumed racing but the nearly four minutes he finished behind Sanders dropped him in the general standings.

Schareina's teammate Adrien van Beveren of France remained third, more than 20 minutes behind, while Sanders' KTM teammate Luciano Benavides of Argentina strengthened his position in fourth place by winning his second successive stage.

Benavides, thanks to collecting time bonuses of nearly five minutes by opening the way, beat Van Beveren by nearly two minutes, and repeated his win into Haradh two years ago. Sanders was third after leading until about 70 kilometers from the end.

“I only got lost a couple of times ... and lost a little bit of time,” Sanders said. “I could have pushed and made some more (time) but it's not too bad.”