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Tottenham Hotspur trio Dele Alli, Harry Kane
and Harry Winks were ruled out of the initial 25-man squad for
the coming days' fixtures, and Fabian Delph, Raheem Sterling and
Jordan Henderson have since also pulled out.
England host world champions Germany at Wembley on Friday and
Brazil four days later.
The depleted squad allows Southgate to field a lineup from a
pool of youngsters including Tammy Abraham, Joe Gomez and Ruben
Loftus-Cheek, who received their first call-ups to the senior
squad.
"This period between qualification and the finals has to have an
element of experimentation," Southgate told a news conference on
Thursday.
"If we don't try things in these games, when are we going to try
things? Germany took a really young team to the Confederations
Cup - I thought it was brilliant what they did.
"I've really enjoyed the week. New players coming in and two
great games to look forward to. We'll take more from these games
than any of the qualification games."
Southgate dismissed any talk of a club-versus-country row over
players' fitness.
Spurs manager Mauricio Pochettino said on Wednesday his top
scorer Kane would be fit for Premier League trip to Arsenal on
Nov. 18.
Asked if he was satisfied that all players who had pulled out
were genuinely injured, Southgate replied: "Yeah, absolutely.
"I hear this talk of club v country -- it's nonsense. They are
injured and they can't play. Harry Kane -- I knew he was in
trouble because he stayed down -- Kane doesn't stay down.
"...Spurs might risk (him and Winks) them for the Arsenal game,
that's a different matter."
England host world champions Germany at Wembley on Friday and
Brazil four days later. (Reporting by Hardik Vyas in Bengaluru;
editing by John Stonestreet)
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