AXEMAN GARETH
Smalling is dropped as Southgate says: I want defenders who can pass
ICE appears to run through Gareth Southgate’s veins and not just because he was so brutally candid in explaining why he omitted seven players from his latest England squad.
Sure, his assessment of Chris Smalling and why he had been dropped was savage. He wants centre halves who are competent enough on the ball to play out from the back and a defender captaining Manchester United has lost out to Harry Maguire and Joe Gomez because he doesn’t quite cut it in that department.
But Southgate’s cold response to what he had witnessed here at Wembley the previous evening was just as surprising. Had the sight of English players in Tottenham’s ranks destroying the European champions excited him? After talking so cautiously about England in the past, was he daring to dream?
‘I’m just as excited to be picking young players like Tammy Abraham, Ruben Loftus- Cheek and Gomez,’ he replied.
It was an almost robotic response; one influenced, you suspect, by a fear of raising expectations eight months out from the World Cup. Not to mention the more immediate challenge of two friendlies against Germany and Brazil. But it was also consistent, in fairness, with an approach that is keeping England players on their toes.
The axing of so many for last month’s games with Slovenia and Lithuania — Daniel Sturridge, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Jermain Defoe among them — was evidence of that, as was the declaration that nobody can be sure of their place.
Asked if he already had a list of 23 players for Russia, he replied: ‘I am not certain there’s many because I think we have really good competition for places.
‘Whatever we think the team is now, the speed of development of some of our young players is so eye- catching I don’t think anybody can sit and safely think they’re going to be involved. In every position on the field there’s really strong competition.’
Smalling can probably crack on and book his summer holiday.
‘I have huge respect for Chris,’ said Southgate. ‘He’s a player who’s obviously playing at a big club. We want to play a certain way. The players we’ve brought in, we want to see using the ball from the back and building up in a certain way. That’s a style I want to have a look at.’
Was he suggesting that Smalling cannot play from the back? ‘No, I think he can,’ he said. ‘But we have players like Stones and Dier and Maguire who are even better. Until they’re given the chance to do it, we won’t know whether they can play at this level.’
On Smalling’s omission, he continued: ‘That’s probably the toughest call I’ve had to make because of the team that Chris is playing for and the fact that he’s playing and keeping clean sheets. It’s no use us playing from the back and giving goals away. We’ve got to have the stability that we had in qualifying.
‘We had the best defensive record in Europe in qualifying. But we’re nowhere near the highest scorers and so we’ve got to address that. Part of that is being able to build and create chances.’
Southgate said he had called all those he had dropped. But he also made it clear that from the moment England qualified, he wanted to make wide- sweeping changes that led to the change in system we saw in Vilnius.
A principal reason for omitting some players has been a lack of first-team football. That is the case for Wilshere and, to some extent, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain too. But Wilshere also concerns him because of his injury record — he says he wants to see evidence that he is more ‘robust’ — and the same seems to go for Sturridge.
‘He’s not playing regularly,’ he said of the Liverpool striker. ‘I don’t remember the last time Daniel had 90 minutes. The attacking players that I’ve picked are the highest English goalscorers in the league: Abraham, Sterling, Kane, Vardy, Rashford.’
The promotion of youth, when England’s younger players are impressing on a global scale, should be welcomed, of course.
‘We feel now is a good chance to have a look at them,’ he said of Abraham, Loftus-Cheek and Gomez. ‘We saw Harry Winks against Lithuania and it was a reminder that until we give them the opportunity we don’t know if they might make the difference. If we’re asking club managers to be brave I think I had better do the same.’
Along with Fraser Forster and Jake Livermore, Aaron Cresswell is another casualty of a squad that boasts 13 players under 24. But he has found room for Ashley Young because ‘a player performing that well at wing-back for United’ can fit into his new system.
Southgate nevertheless kept a lid on his excitement for Tottenham’s display at Wembley.
‘I wasn’t so impressed with them (Real Madrid). But my point is I am excited by young English players that are coming through.
‘I’m excited by (Phil) Foden and (Jadon) Sancho. I’m excited by the players through the age groups that we’re seeing. I can see a different sort of technical player coming through the system.’
‘I ask the clubs to pick young players, so I should as well’