Well Hodgson would have to be completely mental to ignore the English players at Southampton so I'm not sure it would be possible to not pick them even if he wanted to.
Four of them though? And none from Sunderland? Admittedly Cattermole and Bardsley are maybe not quite England material but I'm really surprised about Johnson's omission.
In the eyes of the media, clubs like Sunderland, Stoke, West Brom, Norwich, possibly Aston Villa are not considered glamorous. Southampton are a middling club in the media glamour stakes along with Newcastle behind the London clubs and the Mersey/Manx clubs.
Like Shaw's comments...thanked the club and coaches, but said his major thanks were to his parents who believed in him and did 2 hr drives every Monday night despite working the next day. Good lad.
Don't think you can be too surprised. He has been pretty abject for the last couple of seasons and has never really done anything in previous appearances for England. The competition for the right midfield birth is pretty competitive with Lallana, Ox, Sterling, Townsend and even Milner. Will take a little more than a couple of half decent months to push him above the competition. I'm sure if he picks up and his form a bit more and performs consistently until May then he could stand a chance.
Mauricio says 17 players are away during international week (at various age groups). The coaches are going to be lonely...cue videos of MP playing head tennis. Perhaps he could rope Katharina in...if so, she shouldn't expect any quarter.
6 goals and 2 assists in his last 7 games. His form isn't going to get any better than it is right now.
Not sure whether that's true overall, but it's definitely true that Saints have been typecast in a way that helps the English players. Also makes for amusing transfer rumours, because 'Saints Academy produces good young prospects' is so ingrained now it's not just the senior players that get linked to big clubs, it's the reserves...everyone who has ever set foot at Staplewood is a day away from cracking the England squad, and a week away from joining Man U.
Take out game 7 from your stat and it's 3 goals & 1 assist in 6 games, remove game 6(against ourselves) 2 goals & no assists in 5. Scoring is not his major role in the team, but I didn't walk away from our game thinking what player Johnson is, despite his goal and assist. He has talent, but he is not performing for 90 minutes on anything like a consistent basis. He has plenty of room for improvement
No player in that England squad performs at his best for 90 minutes in every game, and almost all of them have just as much room for improvement. And 2 goals in 5 is still pretty good for a winger. Certainly better than Townsend's one (lucky) goal and no assists all season, for example.
Southampton is at an inherent disadvantage though as according to the media and the FA, there's no such thing as football in the south. Except for London of course which along with Manchester and Liverpool is the bastion of all football in this country.
Just signed a petition on change.org to ban Cleverley from the England squad. Currently has over 7000 signatures.
