When Burnley keeper James Trafford and both Newcastle full-backs are getting England call-ups, you know that things are getting desperate.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!Morgan Rogers finally got his first England call after entering his worst patch of form for Aston Villa, while Jarrod Bowen got a recall despite West Ham having a rotten start to the season.
We have come up with five uncapped England-eligible players whose performances this season might left them wandering when it’s their turn…
Dwight McNeil (Everton)
Only two English players – Bukayo Saka and Cole Palmer – have created more chances in the Premier League this season than McNeil, who was missing through injury when the Toffees played out that goalless grind against West Ham on Saturday. He has claimed three Premier League goals and three Premier League assists but would surely have more in the latter category if he was servicing a striker other than Dominic Calvert-Lewin.
McNeil has 10 England Under-21 caps so has pathway points but crucially, all those caps came under Aidy Boothroyd, with the then-Burnley winger turning 21 six months before Lee Carsley took charge. Unlucky.
Sean Longstaff (Newcastle United)
With Declan Rice ruled out, Lee Carsley should perhaps have looked at the man who out-tackled him 6-2 when the pair met in Newcastle’s win over Arsenal last week, before out-playing Morgan Gibbs-White last weekend.
At the start of the season we thought Longstaff was keeping the Newcastle midfield seat warm for Sandro Tonali, but he has forced his way into the Newcastle starting line-up for perhaps their finest two performances and results of the season. New England call-up Lewis Hall calls him “underrated” and we have been as guilty as anyone.
It doesn’t help his cause that he has literally no England youth experience; he was on loan at Blackpool at the age of 21 and it’s only three years since Newcastle were willing to sell Longstaff to Everton for just £10m. They’re rather glad they didn’t right about now.
Leif Davis (Ipswich Town)
“It would be a dream to play for England, play for my country,” said the Ipswich left-back last week. The problem? He a) plays for Ipswich Town and b) has never even been close to an England youth call-up, having come up with the Tractor Boys from League One.
There’s no doubt that a dearth of left-backs – Lewis Hall is the only dedicated left-back in the re-jigged England squad – should work in his favour, but successive England managers have now played centre-backs and right-backs on the left rather than look further down the Premier League table. Just ask Rico Henry.
Liam Delap (Ipswich Town)
Only one English player has outscored Delap in the Premier League this season. As Cole Palmer has now pulled out of the England squad, Harry Kane is the only man currently available to Lee Carsley who is in better goalscoring form than the actual England Under-21 man.
As we wrote in Premier League winners and losers: ‘It really is a very good time to be a young English striker scoring Premier League goals. If England are – as seems likely – going to largely skip the post-Kane generation of strikers – your Watkinses, your Solankes – and move straight on to the next gen as happened with Kane himself when he usurped Wayne Rooney, then Delap has a clear run at it.’
Ryan Yates (Nottingham Forest)
A starting midfielder for a top-six Premier League side would usually be a shoo-in for an England call and yet it would be a massive surprise if Yates was given his first England call-up. Even he says “it’s always a possibility” but does not sound convinced that ‘possible’ could ever become ‘probable’.
Was excellent v Chelsea and then Leicester City as Forest pulled themselves into an unlikely top-four spot but Yates is another who was breaking through in the Championship at the age of 21 rather than playing in a Man City or Man Utd development team. At 26, the dream is not yet over, but no central midfielder in Carsley’s current squad is over the age of 24.
Maybe Thomas Tuchel will look beyond England Under-21 pedigree…
