Southgate praised Zaha's decision to play for Ivory Coast

manager Gareth Southgate has claimed that he understands

's decision to change his nationality to

and claims that he did not know what his position would be in the Three Lions.

Zaha played two national friendly games for England in 2012 and 2013, but was not selected by Southgate after 2016, despite his good performance at Crystal Palace. In 2017, he decided to play for Ivory Coast, the country where he was born and participated in the Africa Cup of Nations. He played in 11 of the last 12 African Cup of Nations matches for Ivory Coast and scored two goals in 2019, but failed to reach the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Southgate now stressed that Zaha's decision to change nationality was the right one.

He said:

"He's a talent. He's a good player playing at a high level every week.

"He felt the Ivory Coast was the route to go and I totally understood that. It's hard to say what his role might have been with us.

"Raheem [Sterling] has been a key part of our team for a long period, Jesse Lingard had done a fabulous job and, at the start, we had Adam Lallana, who was our player of the year for the first 18 months or so."

Southgate led Zaha when he was in charge of England Under-21s, claiming it was a difficult time for the former Manchester United winger.

"When we had him with the Under-21s he was in the middle of a very difficult spell both with Manchester United and then on loan with Cardiff," said Southgate, who explained that he never doubted Zaha's commitment or desire to play.

"I remember being asked at the time – and we were asked about a few different cases – and I said players have to have the desire to play for England.

"That was slightly tweaked a bit, I would say, so that created a little bit of an atmosphere with Wilf and [Palace chairman] Steve Parish for a while.

"That wasn't an insinuation on Wilf – you couldn't have a more passionate player, as anyone who follows Crystal Palace knows."

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