Would be interesting to know the England demographic per club for GK / defence / MF / attack (players per position group etc) , and then correlate them with the club GF / GA. It may well be the case that the FA has to impose at least one England player per non GK group, per starting XI, per game, in order to try and assure a deep quality baseline for the national team.
It’s interesting that there’s a lack of top class English defenders. That used to be our strong suit. There have been some good young midfielders and forwards coming through - technically gifted players, which used to be a weakness. Bellingham & Foden are exceptional. It makes sense to develop good, young English players but with clubs awash with money, the easy option is to buy established players (if you’re very rich) or cheaper players from abroad, who have already been given some first team experience in other reasonably strong leagues (Holland, France etc) for the rest. For the sake of the national team, there may need to be a quota system.
Pape Matar Sarr has been called up by Senegal. Luca Gunter and Jamie Donley have been called up by England U18s. Alfie Devine and Dane Scarlett have been called up by England U20s. Oli Skipp and Djed Spence have been called up by England U21s. Madueke is there, too.
Mason Mount has pulled out due to "injury" Skippy might get into the senior squad when the usual hamstring strains occur
Meanwhile, in the Argentina camp, this sentence exists Papu Gomez paid a witch to slow down Lo Celso's recovery so that he would have a spot in the Argentine World Cup roster. This is the true reason that Papu Gomez will not be present during the World Cup winners' celebratory friendlies.
Nick Pope has pulled out of the England squad with a minor injury. He has been replaced by Fraser Forster. That's basically everyone, isn't it?
please log in to view this image This is the new Republic of Ireland kit. The shirt and shorts are mediocre and basic, but those socks are criminal.
Richy isn't a surprise as it looked like a bad one when he went off Can't recall Davies looking crocked, but then again I was distracted trying to find a working pair of eyeballs for the ref at the time...
Along with many others. With two games a week all season for many clubs because of the World Cup, this international break is even less welcome than usual for clubs. Couldn’t they have found a better to time for these fixtures? Or reduced the number of qualifying games?