Sunday 12 November 2017 23:40, UK
England manager Gareth Southgate is attempting to build a squad of leaders ahead of the World Cup and that may lead to another new captain for Tuesday's friendly with Brazil.
Southgate initially kept faith with Wayne Rooney following the sudden departure of Sam Allardyce. However, Rooney quickly became a peripheral figure for the national team and Southgate opted to share the armband among his squad to cultivate leadership qualities.
Jordan Henderson, Joe Hart, Gary Cahill and Harry Kane have all skippered their country in that period, with Eric Dier becoming the sixth different player to lead the team out under Southgate in Friday's encouraging 0-0 draw with Germany.
Dier, at 23, became the fifth-youngest post-war England captain and Southgate could change skipper again in the team's final match of 2017.
"I will have a think about Tuesday," the England manager said. "The key was to build a group of people who are happy leading and can take more responsibility.
"Eric is another one who has great maturity and tactical understanding of the game and can show a bit more authority at times and have a bigger impact on others.
"Part of the reason was to say 'come on, you can be a leader within this group' and hopefully he will grow from the experience as well."
Southgate has kept faith with the same captain for both fixtures in the past three international meet-ups, but these friendlies offer the chance to experiment - something Southgate did when handing five players their senior debuts on Friday.
Asked what he would consider a successful World Cup next summer, Southgate added: "Well, my gauge of success would be that we come back from the tournament with the fans proud of how we've played and that means we'll have played well and won some matches.
"(On Friday) we left Wembley and people were excited by what they saw, enjoyed the game, that's my desire as the manager to produce a team which sends people home feeling that way.
"I think it's exciting. We've got a freshness about us, an energy about us, that people have enjoyed, we're a young team.There will be difficult nights, I'm sure, but we've got players we believe in."
Southgate added three more youngsters to his squad for the Brazil game, with Dominic Solanke, Lewis Cook and Angus Gunn all promoted from the U21 squad.
Liverpool's Solanke and Bournemouth midfielder Cook were both members of England's U20 squad, which earlier this year were crowned world champions at their age group level.
