Lions go Madd for Foxes’ new star
JAMES MADDISON has been backed to be a star for England.
The Leicester playmaker,
21, has been named in the
25-man squad for the Nations League doubleheader against Croatia and Spain as one of three new call-ups, along with Jadon Sancho and Mason Mount.
Maddison has been called up after playing just seven Premier League games following a £22m move from Norwich in the summer.
But he has bagged three goals and two assists already and Foxes boss Claude Puel said: “He can do the same for the national team and influence the game and control the tempo.
“He can give a different tempo and intensity and step by step he will have the maturity to give the organisation to the play.
“We know the quality ‘Maddie’ can bring.”
Fellow newboy Mason Mount admits Frank Lampard pranked him about his dream call-up.
The on-loan Chelsea midfielder was called to the office of Derby boss Lampard, who was capped
106 times by England. He said: “I’m going to remember this for a long time.
“He spoke about maybe I needed a rest against QPR and then told me about how Gareth had called him up and told me I was going away with the England first team.
“He definitely played me!”
LES FERDINAND hinted he would struggle to say no if the FA want him to succeed Dan Ashworth as technical director.
The ex-striker is favourite to replace Brighton-bound Ashworth and said: “I played for England and you want to work at the highest level you can.
“I’d never discount anything but it’s not something that I’m actively searching for.”
GARETH SOUTHGATE knows the clock is already ticking on his reign as England boss – despite only just signing a new contract.
Southgate agreed a new £2.5ma-year deal yesterday to steer the Three Lions through to the
2022 World Cup.
The significance of that date is not lost on the 48-year-old who knows his summer World Cup success has cranked up the heat on him to deliver a trophy.
Southgate guided England to the semi-finals in Russia just a few months ago – now he is under pressure to go all the way.
FA chief executive Martin Glenn witnessed Southgate signing his new deal and then said: “We will win a World Cup and we will win the Euros – you can just never say when.”
Five years ago, the then FA chairman Greg Dyke declared England should aim to reach the semi-finals of Euro 2020 and win the 2022 World Cup.
A clock was put up in the coaches’ room at St George’s Park counting down to that date with destiny in Qatar and Southgate is well aware of that.
He said: “I think that got a lot of publicity. The clock isn’t here anymore…”
But how confident is he that England can deliver major trophy success during the duration of his new deal?
“Well, we came from a World Cup where, had one of the Colombians nailed a penalty three inches lower, we might not have been talking about all the progress, the new way of playing,” he said.
Margins
“International football is such fine margins and it’s the FA Cup of international football, going to a World Cup or a European Championship.
“Your reputation, judgement and assessment can be on a five-minute period in a game or one major incident in a game.
“So it’s important not to be distracted and important to recognise to win an international tournament is that much more difficult.
“We know the last four in the World Cup were all going to the European Championships, that’s with Spain, Germany and Italy and Holland to come back.
“So it’s a massive task for us. But Martin’s point was right.
“What we set about with the junior teams was to be in and around semi-finals all the time, where you’re in the matches that give you a chance to have success.
“Then you learn how to win those really big games because you’re in there all the time and experiencing those moments of pressure.
“That’s what we want our players to have.”
Southgate said the honour of managing England was always the major factor in him signing a new deal.
“I just think it’s a brilliant honour and not something you should give away lightly,” he said.
“I think it’s to be cherished. I feel as if there’s still a chance to improve what we’re doing.
“You want to be involved in a job that gives you experience of big matches and working under pressure.
“That’s the world I have lived in as a player and to have the opportunity to do that as a manager, to be involved in games that really matter, is a privilege really.
“You know that with the national team it means more than anything else you are ever going to do.
“You can have great relationships with your clubs – and I did with mine – but emotionally the national team has always been the biggest thing for me.
“It’s what I always wanted to do. And it just means that bit more because of the size of what you affect.
“When I travel around the country now I’ve found it wasn’t only the winning of matches in the World Cup that affected people but the way the players were and the way all the team had represented them.”