HARRY Redknapp says England are one of “six or seven teams” who can win the World Cup.
The ex-West Ham and Tottenham manager also indicated he thinks Gareth Southgate will ring the changes ahead of tonight’s match against Wales.
He told GB News: “We’ll make one or two changes. I’m a big Phil Foden fan, I think we’ve got to get Foden in the team. And I’m also a big Jack Grealish fan.
“I just think they’ve got so much ability and they can open the door; defence is going to be tight tonight, Wales are going to set up to try to hit us on the break.
“But I do think we need to have a little bit of magic in our team that can open up the Welsh defence and I would certainly look at those two to get them into the team tonight.”
Asked about the role of Gareth Bale for Wales, in an interview with Isabel Webster and Martin Daubney on GB News, he continued: “He’s got to play. If I was the manager of the Welsh team, he’s got to play.
“With one flash of genius he can change the game, he can suddenly have a shot from 30 yards, or he could do something special. They’re going to need someone to do something special tonight.”
On the pressure on Gareth Southgate, he added: “You’ll always have people jumping on the bandwagon, but I mean we came to get through the group and then take it as it comes in the next stages, and he’ll do that tonight. He’ll secure a place in the knockout stages of the competition and that was the aim.
“And then it’s a knockout and it’s up to us, we’ve got as good a chance as anybody, I really mean that – it’s a wide-open World Cup.
“I don’t think there’s a fantastic team and I don’t look at the TV and think ‘oh my God, they are just so good’.
“It’s wide-open, there’s six or seven teams I think could win it and I put England in that category. So, I think we’ve still got a big chance.”
On Wales, he said: “They’ll come out and give everything tonight and we’ve all seen games where the underdog can turn it around, if they work hard enough and they get the breaks.
“Nothing’s impossible but I’d be very surprised if England couldn’t win tonight.”
On those who England must overcome to win the tournament he added: “I’ve gone with Portugal. I think Portugal has got a chance. They could have a good run in the competition.
“The favourites, Argentina, were shocking in the first game, but they came back in the second game and played ever so well. So, they’d have a chance. “Brazil, you know, we can never write Brazil off, can we? Look, it’s a wide-open competition.”
