Wisdom: a captain, wise beyond his years

LIVERPOOL FC’s young defender Andre Wisdom has been handed the captaincy of the England U21 team on a permanent basis by new manager Gareth Southgate, reports The Liverpool Echo.

With Gareth Southgate being placed in charge of the England U21s for their new European Championship Qualifying attempt, all eyes were on his first squad announcement to see who he would select as his captain.

Wisdom, age 20 did captain England U21s in their friendly win against their Scottish counterparts last month so it was not that much of a surprise when Southgate announced him as the permanent captain.

Wisdom was quoted as saying:

“It’s a great honour to captain any England side at any level so I’m pleased to retain the captaincy and hopefully we can go on and do well.

“We’ve got two games coming up so it’s a chance to impress everyone and hopefully me and the lads can put a good performance on and show the fans what we’re really capable of.”

Wisdom, who was given his Reds debut last season by manager Brendan Rodgers has also spoken about how having former vice captain Jamie Carragher, Liverpool and England captain Steven Gerrard and new signing Kolo Toure as team mates has helped his development, stating:

“Steven Gerrard is a great captain for club and country.

“It doesn’t matter what position you play, you can learn a lot from him, especially training with him every day and seeing the way he presents himself and lifts teams in times of need.

“I can see the way he lifts the team and hopefully I can do the same.

“It’s good to be called a wise head on young shoulders – I think it goes well with my second name as well!

“But I just try to take everything in my stride and be as humble as possible and learn from players like Kolo Toure and Jamie Carragher.”