ENGLAND EVOLVING

Hopes are high that Southgate’s squad is developing into one that can storm the Euros next summer

WHEN England’s World Cup came to an end in Moscow in July 2018, Gareth Southgate claimed to be certain of the path ahead.

‘We have a core group of young players in this squad we believe will take us forward and others coming through the age-group teams,’ said the England head coach. ‘We are starting to see success through the age groups but it’s an ongoing process. This team is nowhere near the level they are going to be capable of.’

It was an easy thing to say and to believe. Southgate and his players had given us so much to cheer during that summer in Russia, we would have swallowed just about anything.

But it so happens that Southgate may have been right. A year or so on, his England team — his core of 16 or 17 key players — are not without fault but, just as he suggested after that defeat against Croatia in the World Cup semi-final, his squad has started to evolve, improve and move naturally forwards.

At the start of a season that ends with a European Championship tournament, which England will play largely at home, there is a feeling that phase two of Southgate’s time as coach starts now. Last season gave us the virgin Nations League, which we broadly liked, and then some drearily familiar free- hit Euro 2020 qualifying games, that England literally could not lose and did not.

Now, though, the road to Wembley — where England will hope to contest next summer’s semi-final and final — begins properly and Southgate will today announce a squad that has a nod both back to the achievements of last summer and forwards to a future that will look a little different. At club level and in international football, player form waxes and wanes. Sometimes, careers that look set securely on the right trajectory can stall.

Arguably, that has happened since Russia 2018 to players like John Stones, Dele Alli and Eric Dier. Equally, players like Kieran Trippier and Jesse Lingard have questions to answer while dear old Ashley Young may have to accept that, for all his exceptional years of service, he is 34 now.

Five of those six players started against Croatia and Dier came on as a substitute. With the exception of Young, they are players approaching their peak years — their average age is 25 and a half — and there is no reason why they should not return to prominence.

But Southgate’s point as he spoke after Russia was that English football now has a production line through the age groups that is moving again. The academy system would appear to have finally provided the England team with a platform on which it can refresh and renew. When players falter or suffer injury, they can be replaced. With that in mind, last season’s

international football was notable for the fast-tracking of Jadon Sancho of Borussia Dortmund, Ruben Loftus-Cheek of Chelsea, West Ham’s Declan Rice and the promotion of players like Leicester full back Ben Chilwell and Tottenham’s ball player Harry Winks.

Add to that the gifted Liverpool defender Joe Gomez, whose season was curtailed prematurely by injury, and the gradual and welcome return to form of Ross Barkley and the choices available to Southgate — especially in creative areas — are very clear.

This time, as Southgate selects for what should be straightforward home games against Bulgaria and Kosovo, the names in vogue are James Maddison of Leicester and Mason Mount of Chelsea (left). Personally I think the time is now for the former and too early for the latter.

Not all who saw Maddison play for the Under 21s in a disappointing European Championships in Italy in the summer feel the Leicester player showed enough drive and determination in a struggling team. But his form so far for Leicester suggests he is ready for the next step. The 22-year-old was called up a year ago but did not play.

Mount’s time will also come, we hope. He has impressed in patches for Frank Lampard’s Chelsea but is yet to contribute a consistent 90 minute performance. He may yet have to show a little more if his steady rise through the ranks is to reward him with full England honours.

It is worth remembering, of course, that we did not win the Nations League. UEFA were delighted with England’s presence in the last four in Portugal in June because of the profile it lent the finals in their inaugural year. But in terms of the football, England were disappointing in losing to Holland and then winning a shootout in a dreary and pointless third-place game against Switzerland. If anyone needed a reminder how high the bar remains in Europe, it came in Porto.

If there is an achilles heel in the Southgate prototype then it concerns the defending. For all their control of the ball in advanced areas, England are unreliable at the back and, though Harry Maguire’s summer transfer to Manchester United will only accelerate a good player’s progress, the fact that Stones was not a regular pick for City last season is something that will concern the manager. If Gomez is to become a regular under Southgate then the opening is likely to come as partner to Maguire rather than at full back.

There is no such thing as a squad without conundrums, however, and with just less than 10 months to go until the start of the Euros, Southgate is pretty much where he hoped he would be.

‘We have a great opportunity to get to a World Cup final,’ he said on his way back from Russia last July. Next summer’s stepping stone already looks and feels like a pretty big one.