Gareth Southgate hoping to talk to Wilfried Zaha about international future

04 December 2016 10:53

New England boss Gareth Southgate wants Wilfried Zaha to remain an option for the Three Lions rather than see him switch his national allegiance to the Ivory Coast.

The 24-year-old Crystal Palace winger was born in the Ivory Coast and moved to England with his family when he was four.

He picked up two senior England caps during Roy Hodgson's tenure, but he is eligible to switch to his country of birth as both appearances came in friendlies.

Zaha has already been pictured holding an Ivory Coast shirt and could turn out for the Elephants at the Africa Cup of Nations in Gabon, which starts next month.

But Southgate, who worked closely with the former Manchester United man at Under-21 level, will seek talks with Zaha in the near future.

"We are still first and foremost hopeful that we can speak to Wilf," he said when asked about the potential change from Zaha.

"He's a player I've obviously worked with. At the time, I had him with the Under-21s. The first few months he played very well for us.then he had a difficult period for his club.

"He had a loan spell at Cardiff that didn't go so well and at the stage we had players like Tom Ince, who was performing better in the Championship out wide for us, so he dipped out of that group.

"Then obviously over the last couple of years, with respect, no-one was questioning him not being in our squad last summer (at the European Championships)."

Asked if the player's decision was now too far down the line, Southgate replied: "I would like to speak to him before we make a decision and happy to make that happen."

The new England manager has kept his eye on the progress Zaha has made this campaign, with the player featuring in all but three of Palace's games so far.

"He has played very well this season," added Southgate.

"I saw him at Everton where he played okay. He played well at Burnley where in the second half I thought he was excellent.

"I had a conversation with (Palace manager) Alan Pardew about him that week leading up to that game and I had a conversation with (Palace chairman) Steve Parish about him at half-time during that game. He is someone who I said to Alan I am aware of."

Despite being aware of Zaha, Southgate opted against calling the forward up for any of the four games which he presided over on an interim basis before landing the England job full-time on Wednesday.

"For me I only had a few days to make a decision and I had a squad that had done pretty well in October and I wanted to build on that," he said.

"We had Adam Lallana and Raheem Sterling coming into that. But he is certainly someone who has talent, is in a good moment with his club and ideally I'd like to talk to him before he makes that decision final."

Another player whose international future remains in the balance is Liverpool youngster Ben Woodburn.

The 17-year-old became Liverpool's youngest-ever goalscorer when he found the net in Tuesday's EFL Cup win over Leeds but, despite being born in Chester, he has represented Wales up to Under-19 level.

Asked about the Liverpool academy graduate, Southgate said: "Ben's a player we've known for a long time. He got into Wales' system very young so this is a challenge for us now in terms of the dual-nationality boys we have.

"There is always an ethical debate with the young ones about how soon we start to run camps.

"Ethically we don't want to get boys in too young - but other countries are going younger.

"And if players feel an attachment to them and their system, it becomes difficult and we're always assessing that.

"We've certainly recognised his qualities in the last couple of years."

Source: PA