England defender Trent Alexander-Arnold has been ruled out of this summer's European Championship through injury.

The Liverpool player damaged his thigh during last night's 1-nil friendly win against Austria.

England manager Gareth Southgate won't confirm a replacement until after Sunday's match against Romania.

Alexander-Arnold is set to be out for six weeks with the injury, which means he should return in time for the start of pre-season training with Liverpool.

The 22-year old by all accounts had been a borderline call from Southgate regards making his final 26, after he was left out of the squad for March's trio of World Cup qualifiers.

Alexander-Arnold's injury came late in Wednesday night's game at Middlesbrough's Riverside Stadium, which England won 1-0 through a Bukayo Saka goal.

James Ward-Prowse and Jesse Lingard appear the prime candidates to replace the Liverpool full-back in the squad. Both were among those omitted when Southgate revealed his final panel on Tuesday evening.

Speaking ahead of the Austria game, Southgate had claimed talk of a rift between himself and Alexander-Arnold were nonsense.

"The stories over the last couple of weeks that have ended up with lots of strange headlines and lots of strange stories, I've no idea where they have come from," he said.

"I felt there were stories that were so far off the truth. I would never normally speak to a player because I read a lot of stories about myself that aren't true, but I have to accept that's the job I'm in and people speculate and write it's exclusive.

"But when it's a player, they might feel reading it that maybe it's true and the manager is speaking to the press behind their back. That's obviously not the case.

"Even last night we are dealing with that and puzzled, because he is there taking set-pieces for the game tomorrow then he's reading that he's not going to the European Championships. I really don't understand it.

"For me, it's no drama, I accept as England manager this is what I deal with. That's the world I live in.

"But for my players, I want to protect them. We are having to speak to Trent last night to say 'look, we don't know where this is all coming from, it's nonsense'.

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