We won’t win without Reece
CHELSEA ACE WAS AS VITAL TO OUR CHANCES AS KANE
I’M SO pleased for both James Maddison and Conor Gallagher after they made England’s World Cup squad.
I did not see the latter’s inclusion coming – nobody gave him a chance after a difficult season with Chelsea.
You had begun to wonder whether he’d shot himself in the foot by returning to Stamford Bridge after such a positive loan spell with Crystal Palace, but it’s now paid dividends.
Maddison has the X-factor and I really think he’s got a chance of playing, otherwise he wouldn’t have been selected.
He’s been bang in form and it’s great for Gareth Southgate
(inset) as he was under pressure to pick him.
It’s a feel-good story amid the difficulties of delivering the bad news to those not going to Qatar.
It feels like Gallagher has been included as cover for Kalvin Phillips, who has barely played a match this season.
I just find it weird that he’s willing to gamble on Phillips and Kyle Walker but not Reece James? If it was Harry Kane he would be going – what’s the difference? We aren’t going to win the World Cup without having James in the team.
He is one of our best players.
If it was Kane, they would say, ‘Right, we’ll take him and use him after the group stages.’
We are as bad as anybody at the back and so we need to take one of our best players. I just don’t understand it. He is as important as Kane. Reading his statement, he feels like he is going to be fit in a few weeks’ time.
I would have only used him in the knockout stages anyway.
I’d have wrapped him up in cotton wool because you can use Trent Alexander-Arnold in the group stages, where you have 70 per cent of the ball, and he is going to look a world-beater.
Then when we come up against France and he falls asleep and Kylian Mbappe scores, we’ll all be scratching our heads.
Having a squad of 26 players gives you a safety net to take a risk and bring an injured player.
It’s usually 23 and we’ve still taken injured players in the past.
I feel for Reece and I also sympathise with the other lads who were cut from the squad.
There’s nothing worse than missing out on a World Cup, I would have thought.
My inclusion at France 1998 was a bit different to how things are done these days.
The news was that Paul Gascoigne wasn’t going and then everyone was saying, ‘Merse is going to go
instead.’