Here it is. These are the 26-players who will travel to Germany for Euro 2024:

Goalkeepers: Jordan Pickford, Aaron Ramsdale, Dean Henderson.

Defenders: Kyle Walker, Kieran Trippier, Joe Gomez, John Stones, Lewis Dunk, Marc Guehi, Ezri Konsa, Luke Shaw.

Midfielders: Declan Rice, Kobbie Mainoo, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Conor Gallagher, Adam Wharton, Jude Bellingham

Forwards: Bukayo Saka, Jarrod Bowen, Phil Foden, Eberechi Eze, Cole Palmer, Anthony Gordon, Ollie Watkins, Harry Kane, Ivan Toney.

Alexander-Arnold has struggled to get games for England at right-back, but a switch into midfield has seen him more involved for his country. The Liverpool vice-captain offers unique creativity as well as pinpoint set-piece delivery and could be an option alongside Rice as a deep-lying midfielder.

The 20-year-old has quickly elevated himself to be one of England’s essential players. He is consistently producing outstanding performances both for his country and his club, Real Madrid, racking up goals and assists after driving runs from midfield. Southgate likes to use Bellingham as a No 10 playing off Harry Kane, and that is likely to be his primary role at the Euros.

Rice has been one of Arsenal’s outstanding players this season, and his importance at international level has grown immeasurably over the past few years to the point where he is crucial to how England play. After Kane, Rice is arguably England’s hardest player to replace.

Gallagher has been bright and energetic in his cluster of England caps and is clearly valued by the manager. He seems to have done enough to usurp more well-established internationals and regular starts for Chelsea this season have helped him win selection for the Euros in a position where England lack depth.

Mainoo has had an impressive breakthrough year at Manchester United after graduating from the club’s academy, and the teenager reproduced that form in his first senior start for England against Belgium. Mainoo played himself into the Euros squad – and perhaps even the starting XI.

The Crystal Palace midfielder has been a crucial part of Palace’s team after a £22.5m move from Blackburn in January, and Southgate has recognised his progress with a place in England’s training squad. The box-to-box midfield position is one where England lack competition, and Southgate was impressed after Wharton’s brief debut against Bosnia.

Another Palace player in form, Eze finished the season strongly as the attacking fulcrum of the team, but he may find there is too much competition for places among England’s advanced midfielders when it comes to winning a spot at Euro 2024. Eze was excellent against Bosnia and sealed his spot.

The Manchester City defender has been a stalwart for Southgate over the years, integral to deep runs at the 2018 World Cup and the last Euros, and the lack of centre-back alternatives only strengthens his position in the squad. Stones has struggled for fitness at times, but finished the season on the City bench and still has time to sharpen up before the tournament.

Experience, recovery pace and an ability to play on the right of a back three all make the Manchester City captain an essential part of Southgate’s plans. Only Maguire and Kane and have won more than Walker’s 61 caps since the manager took charge in 2016.

One of Southgate’s favourites, Trippier is likely to be part of the squad for his experience, versatility and his set-piece delivery. His form for Newcastle this season has not been to his typical high standards and he had battled injury over the past two months, but Trippier returned for the final games of the season and will go to Germany this summer, where he may be deployed at left-back.

Brighton’s captain had to wait five years for his second international cap but has enjoyed a flurry of chances under Southgate in the past 12 months. Dunk’s aerial dominance and ball-playing ability, honed at Brighton under Roberto De Zerbi, are valuable traits at centre-half, one of England’s most uncertain positions. A costly mistake against Belgium raised fresh doubts over his ability to step up to international football, but he has made the squad.

The Crystal Palace defender is highly rated by the England coaching team and, at 23, could be a future cornerstone of the back line. Centre-back is a position that’s still up for grabs at Euro 2024 and Guehi has a real chance, especially after starts in qualifying. But a recent knee injury required surgery, so Guehi’s first start since January – against Aston Villa on the final day of the season – boosted his hopes as he made the cut.

The 26-year-old defender has been a semi-regular fixture in the Liverpool side since early December and his versatility has helped earn a place in the England squad, with the ability to cover at both centre-back and full-back.

Konsa is a vital part of an impressive Aston Villa team under Unai Emery. He played in England’s friendly against Brazil in March, and will travel to Germany as a back-up centre-half with the versatility to play right-back too.

When fit, Shaw is the preferred left-back in this England team, bringing attacking threat on the overlap. But he has spent most of the season out with a leg injury, before a hamstring strain ended his campaign early. Southgate opted to include Shaw in the 33-man training squad, but the race is on to be fully fit in Germany.

The Everton goalkeeper has been England’s No 1 for a long time and that position is safe – despite a poor error in the March friendly against Belgium – particularly given the way his closest challenger, Aaron Ramsdale, was usurped by David Raya at Arsenal this season.

The goalkeeper lost his battle for a starting place at Arsenal with David Raya, but even so, he is going to the Euros as Pickford’s deputy.

Henderson stood in for the injured Sam Johnstone at Crystal Palace in the final two months of the season, and was part of their impressive seven-game unbeaten run to end the campaign. He will now fill Johnstone’s spot as England’s third-choice goalkeeper at the Euros.

The manager is cutting a raft of high-profile names include James Maddison, Jack Grealish and the injured Harry Maguire when he names his final 26 players, having already axed Marcus Rashford, Jordan Henderson and Ben Chilwell from his training squad.

Emerging talent such as Adam Wharton, his Crystal Palace teammate Eberechi Eze and Newcastle’s Anthony Gordon are all set to make the final squad.

England beat Bosnia and Herzegovina 3-0 St James’ Park on Monday, and will play Iceland at Wembley on Friday in their last warm-up before the tournament. The squad must be submitted to Uefa by midnight after the game, before the Football Association announces the 26 who made the cut for the European Championship in Germany the following day.

Friday night’s match against Iceland will now be the team’s send-off, and Southgate confirmed that Aaron Ramsdale will start.

“There are clearly relationships that you want to build. There are decisions we are making on who plays when because there are some players who reported later than others so some needed the first game and we needed to get others into the second game. There is still a mix. Some are still not quite ready to start. It is not quite as simple as just playing the team for Serbia and we still have a week to work that out.”

Southgate said that there was a feeling of disappointment around the squad on Thursday, but that he planned to get all the staff together that evening to talk through and also draw a line for the tournament going forward.

“Firstly that gives us the focus for the game [against Iceland on Friday] and then when everybody comes back on Sunday night or Monday we can really start to think about the tournament.”

Southgate played down the relative youth of the squad, despite half the picks for the backline facing their first tournament. That only puts greater importance on Harry Kane as a senior figure. While the selection of both Ollie Watkins and Ivan Toney has raised questions on the Bayern Munich striker’s fitness, given he has barely played since May, Southgate insisted that wasn’t part of it.

“No… I think we’re conscious that, with 26, if you had a problem with Harry, then to only have one alternative, you could run into trouble, and the two guys give very different styles of play, different attributes, similar to the sort of seven, 10, 11 positions behind, we wanted different profiles, we had the opportunity to take the numbers to do that, so we thought they were good options to have.

“There’s no doubt that the senior boys who have gone today are big characters but we still have big characters and we have guys who are going to emerge in the coming weeks.”

“I spoke to some of the boys last night and some today. As early as we were able to once we had made decisions. Once we had made clear decisions we tried to make those decisions as quickly as we could really.

“There were one or two injury things that we had to confirm through training just to be certain. As I said I tried to tell them all as early as I could. I knew exactly last night where we were with James [Maddison] and didn’t want him to be hanging on and training when I knew I could tell him. I couldn’t do that with Jack until this morning…”

When asked about Grealish’s wider form, Southgate said: “I don’t think today would be a good day to talk about the bigger picture. I don’t think that would be fair. I have just delivered a really difficult conversation to a lad who is devastated. I think the world of him as a kid. Yes. I am not going to go any broader than that.”

When asked about the loss of Maguire at set-pieces, Southgate replied: “We’ll be different, we’ll have to find different strategies, different ways of working, Harry’s consistently been one of our main first contacts from set-plays but we have got other options within that, but we have got other opportunities to be creative in our set-plays as well.”

Southgate’s decision on Grealish ultimately came down to the fitness of other players, particularly Newcastle United’s Anthony Gordon. Once the England staff had sufficient information on Thursday morning, however, it was decided not to extend the situation much longer. The squad announcement had initially been planned for Saturday, but Southgate felt it was fairer to the players to do it sooner. It was why James Maddison had been informed the night before.

Gareth Southgate named an initial 33-man training squad that needed trimming to 26 players by 11pm on Friday, just over an hour after the final friendly against Iceland finishes.

But rather than wait until Uefa’s deadline, the England boss decided to announce the final cut on the eve of the Wembley send-off.