England manager Gareth Southgate has revealed his reasons for picking one Chelsea attacker but not another.

Southgate called-up Chelsea's Cole Palmer ahead of his club and countryman Raheem Sterling.

Palmer had previously been with the Under-21s, with Southgate preferring him as a central attacking midfielder to replace the absent Jude Bellingham and James Maddison.

"In terms of Cole, the key was [we] lost Maddison and Jude so we wanted somebody who could play as a 10," Southgate said to reporters.

"Of course, he's playing wider at the moment for his club, but we hadn't lost a winger as such, we'd lost two attacking midfield players. So we've got a couple of players now who can fulfill that sort of role for these games.

"Raheem was excellent at the weekend against [Manchester] City, as was Cole. But the position was the reason for [calling up] Cole really."