Gareth Southgate will "feel justified" in his decision to not select AC Milan defender Fikayo Tomori in his recent England squad, according to Rio Ferdinand.
Tomori suffered a second successive horror show against former side Chelsea on Tuesday night, as the Blues academy graduate was sent off against his former club. With just 18 minutes on the clock, Tomori was shown a red card for denying his old teammate, Mason Mount, a clear goal-scoring opportunity. Chelsea would go on to win 2-0.
That result came just six days after the two sides played each other at Stamford Bridge, with Chelsea winning that encounter 3-0 also. Milan were way off the pace in west London, with Tomori run ragged on a nightmare return to his former stomping ground.
After the game at San Siro, Ferdinand discussed how Tomori's two games against Chelsea would have done serious damage to his England prospects with the World Cup on the horizon.
'The last two games, he's probably showed two elements of his game where Gareth Southgate's thinking: 'I was justified in not picking him,'" the Manchester United legend told BT Sport.
"Lapses in concentration for the penalty, allowing Mason Mount to get in behind him, and in the first game, his body position and the way he tried to make a clearance for the Aubameyang goal.
"Two big games, showpiece games for him to really put a marker down and stake his claim for a place in the England team. But these two games couldn't have gone any worse for him in that sense."
While Tomori was named in England's 28-man squad for the most recent fixtures against Italy and Germany, he failed to play a single minute and was even left out of the match-day squad for the draw against Hansi Flick's side at Wembley.
Ferdinand has previously publicly called for Tomori to feature more regularly for the Three Lions, so his latest comments are a damning indictment of how much damage the defender may have done to his England prospects.
After Tomori's omission from the squad against Germany, it was Ferdinand who leapt to his defence, claiming: "That’s the question that needs to be asked.
"I can’t believe [it], Tomori has won Serie A, he is playing really well as an integral player in that team and can’t get anywhere near the squad. Let alone the team, he can’t get in the squad for the game."
