I agree because he will play diagonals over the top to pacey players as he did today. I wouldn't be upset if he picked White (as Maguire is out and Mings looks an accident waiting to happen) nor Watkins as we only have two centre forwards. But if we take Lingard that would be mad with the wealth of offensive players.
In fact can we swap Ward-Prowse, White and Bamford or Watkins for Alexander-Arnold, Mings and Sancho?!
I don’t think the problem is necessarily that Ben White is going as England only had three fit CB’s selected. (Surprised he is ahead of Godfrey though). But there should have been a place for JWP in that line up - Henderson, Phillips and Saka are all fitness issues. Doesn’t help that Henderson made a colossal twat of himself yesterday as well when he eventually got game time.
Typical of past England mangers, take injured players. Gareth should not be taking Maguire, and also on last nights display Mings shouldn’t be going either.
How many are there? Maguire looks done, but is still in the squad. Henderson didn’t look match fit yesterday imo and had a great start to his ‘leadership role’ by abusing it to take a penalty from a striker, then miss. There were questions over Phillips, but he seemed ok in the warm up. Saka is apparently injured but still in the squad. We have been here before with England and it never works. What gets me with JWP is that he has made a couple of 23 man squads, but is now outside of Southgate's preferred 27? (Including Alexander-Arnold).
I read on the BBC webpage that some England fans again booed England players for taking to the knee!!!! Is it because they feel that this gesture is linked with BLM and associated with "liberal" politics, whilst those that booed have views akin to the EDL and UKIP? If so these fans should be barred from getting tickets in future.
Thing is Maguire is probably our best CB. However, he's not going to be ready for the group stages. So if we make it through that are you going to break up the defence that got you to the knockouts (though tbf it'll be our attacking players that get us anywhere in this tournament, not the defence) and put in a player who will take a few games to get up to match fitness and sharpness? Doubt it. Is he scared about the poor performances from Mings in these friendlies? Not a glowing endorsement for his own squad selection. Ward Prowse should be in that squad, and that he's not just shows how short sighted Southgate is.
Yep Maguire is injured, Henderson only last week complained of pain and hasn’t played for months. And Rashford is being assessed match by match because of a recurring foot injury.
Ben White being added to Squad makes me think Maguire will not be fit. Philips yesterday showed he is a more than able replacement for Henderson, bit tough on JWP as he is some player too
Bit of a catch-22 for me Prowsey not being in If he was, he would probably only get 10mins at the end of a game anyway which would just be a let down Southgate said we didn’t press well enough and he’s left out one of our best midfield pressers
Sancho out, really? He got 8 goals and 12 assists in the league this season, with 16 goals and 20 assists in all comps. In comparison, Foden got 9 goals and 5 assists in the league, with 16 goals, 10 assists overall. Foden played 50 games, Sancho 38. Both great players and both would probably be in my starting England line-up.
I can see the conversation now …. “Sorry, James, I can’t put you in the squad, even though you’re the best of the replacements. Now, if you’d been playing for a “big club” I’d have had no issues - even if you’d spent most of the season on the bench, because you’d have been training with all those world class players who are also on the bench. I’m going to go with a Brighton defender instead” What a kick in the teeth ….
Ben White makes complete sense to be honest. Maguire's fitness is unknown, so we would have had three centre backs without him. Also, this is a 26 man squad, not the usual 23. So Southgate can get away with three injury doubts like Maguire, Henderson and Saka. Mount can also play centre mid, so we have a lot of options there already even without Henderson. Why do we care? Pretty much every time our players get regular time in the England squads they **** off to another team. As someone else said, he wouldn't have played much anyway. At least now he can rest up before pre-season, because I'd much rather he was fit and firing for us instead of England.
