Forget Alexander-Arnold and Maddison – Southgate is stupid for leaving out this England player

Trent Alexander-Arnold could be Gazza for England. But daft as it is for Gareth Southgate to overlook him, there is a more egregious omission.

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Almost there
Blimey, what a miserable international break.

Next weekend can’t come quick enough, we need proper football back….asap.
Stu, Twickenham

Does he get on the plane?
I agree with the Mediawatch stance on certain the papers focussing on Trent not playing rather than those that squeezed out a comeback against the Germans last night, but that doesn’t mean that I agree with the way he appears to have been treated.

We are all aware of certain shortcomings in regards to positional discipline that Trent on occasion can suffer from – this gets more greatly exposed when playing in a back 4. England will not be playing a back 4 against the better teams in the WC it seems.

The role filled by Reece James is the perfect position for Trent for England as it affords him the extra defensive cover whilst encouraging influence further up the pitch. Reece James delivery is of a very high standard (I really rate him) … Trent’s is better (Reece is the more complete ‘defender’ in my mind).

What I find hard to fathom is how little we appear to value the incisive quality of Trent’s delivery and recognising that over the last few years it has been one of the most potent tools in the greatest club league in the world in terms of delivering goals (would love to see the ‘net goals’ stat of his ‘assists – errors’ compared to others).

All I want from this WC is for other countries around the world to see us and think ‘they play great football / great to watch’, so I am more in the ‘have a go’ camp, fully accepting that this may create weakness in certain areas. We can either be a nation that takes the Rafa approach of 1) don’t lose .. then 2) try to win .. or we could actually try to have a real go.

Thank god Telly Vegetables chose to do that in ’96 when picking Gazza when there were calls in certain circles not to pick him – what sweeter memories we have of that time as a result ….. and who knows if Hoddle had picked him in ’98 whether we would have been better in that tournament.

This is not a mail stating ‘Trent has to start’ … but this is a mail saying that he bloody well needs to be on the plane.

We know Walker can play right side of a back 3 effectively (based more on being an athlete than footballing prowess it appears to…