We can strike it rich in Euros with wealth of talented forwards
I HAVEN’T been as excited about a group of English forwards as I am now since the crop I was part of in the mid-1990s.
Terry Venables had an incredibly diverse set of strikers to choose from, with Alan Shearer, Teddy Sheringham, Robbie Fowler, Andy Cole, me, Paul Merson, Chris Sutton, Dion Dublin, Les Ferdinand, Nicky Barmby and Michael Owen at his disposal.
I know people look back fondly on Euro ’96 and the balance and blend Venables found up front with Shearer and Sheringham.
But I’ve always felt that, in the grand scheme of things, he didn’t pick his forward pool well and, had he been able to better work out how to accommodate some of the other skill sets available, that we could have achieved more than we did.
Gareth Southgate now finds himself similarly well stocked as the countdown begins to next summer.
And with so many parallels between the old guard and the lads he has to choose from it’ll be fascinating to see how he plays it.
I hope he is bold and brave because, barring one or two exceptions, the defensive pool in international football is as poor as it has been for 20 or 30 years. And while some of you will point to Virgil van Dijk, the Dutchman is the exception that doesn’t prove the rule.
If Southgate gets his selections right then he will give England a real chance of going very deep when the delayed Euro 2020 tournament finally gets underway.
It goes without saying that Harry Kane will be the first name on the team-sheet and rightly so because he is the best striker in the country.
And I’d spend the next 11 or so months working on Jamie Vardy and trying to convince him to come out of international retirement.
Vardy’s still hungry and having someone like him who got to the top the hard way in the squad would benefit all those lads who’d come through the academy system.
What will be crucial to any England success will be the options Southgate has if things aren’t working out 65 or 70 minutes into any given game, and Vardy still has the sort of pace that could frighten the life out of defenders at that stage of a game.
Raheem Sterling and Marcus Rashford will probably start either side of Kane as things stand, and I’d have Jadon Sancho and Phil Foden on the bench as potential replacements.
Taking Foden in the forward pool would free up another option in midfield and, let’s face it, it’s pointless taking more than two out-and-out strikers given the way England play.
I know a lot of people will be thinking Mason Greenwood should go and the boy clearly has massive promise. But I’d only look at him if Vardy isn’t for turning and then it’d be between Greenwood and Danny Ings.
What Greenwood needs to do now is show he can do what he’s doing consistently as a regular starter.
We need to see if he can do it when the pressure is really on in a title race, or at Old Trafford every week when it’s packed.
Two years ago, we’d have been looking to Euro 2020 and thinking we’d be up the creek without a paddle if Kane got injured.
But the last few weeks have shown us England potentially have an embarrassment of riches up front and, if they all keep playing the way they have been playing since the restart, then Southgate could easily end up with eight frontmen to choose from at least.