Wilshere is supremely talented on the ball. Winks RLC SWP Onomah Hugues even Swift are better on the ball than Cook. He's tenacious, but I'm not sure that's what England is missing at the moment
I agree about Wilshere but unfortunately he is always crocked and didn't do much better at Bournemouth than Cook. As for the others, none of them have played regularly in the Premier League so far, except JWP and maybe Winks. Both of them are different kind of midfielders, though Cook would be good pairing with Winks.
I'm a bit confused. Cook has only started 4 PL games himself. He is not really in a different position than any of the other options mentioned going into the new season. Cook to me is more of a system player than someone who is going to greatly improve what we already have in the current first team on his individual qualities alone.
He was starting for Bournemouth at the end of last season, post-injury, and obviously Wilshere won't be there next season. I think he has a good chance of staying in the team, in which case he has a good chance to get into the senior England squad. Someone like Tom Davies might be a better bet, but out of the four WASP mentioned I think Cook is currently best placed.
You've made the point I was going to make about Tomori; he needs to cut the howlers out of his game ASAP. I think any of the defenders mentioned would be doing well to play regular Premier League football in the next two years let along get an England cap. Look at how long it took Michael Keane, Jack Stephens and Ben Gibson to properly get a look in at that level. It would be nice for one of them to do a Stones and break in younger but it won't happen for the Chelsea lads, Fry is in the wrong division, Oxford doesn't look like getting game time at West Ham... Woodman is similar, both Pickford and Butland established themselves as Premier League players in their U23 seasons. Woodman would be doing well to track ahead of them. Senior internationals within the next two years are much more likely to come from the attacking/midfield contingent. I'd add Lookman to the list, he had a great tournament and he's at a club where he'll play games.
Ive got to admit I quite like Cook, sure he makes some mistakes but who doesn't in this age group but I personally think he will be one of those players that gets better as he ages, seems to have a good head on his shoulders plus something which I've not really heard mention is his leadership qualities and experience he can take from being Captain of a World Cup winning team. Leadership qualities are certainly in short supply in the senior set up.
Sorry I probably should have quoted someone because I wasn't commenting on the players WASP was discussing. I was mainly focusing on the CM options debate. I thought the issue was players that could make an impact on the senior team rather than just getting in the squad. Cook has a good opportunity at Bournemouth no doubt. The problem I see is that all of our better technical CM's end up playing these number 10 roles in the PL and we end up getting players selected for the deeper roles in the senior squad that can't do the fundamentals required to perform the actual position.
If it's about CMs in general, then I guess there are quite a few who could come into contention. Wilshere and Henderson will obviously be there if they have any luck with injuries, and Shelvey will be back in the Premier League too. Will Hughes is being linked with Watford, which could put him right into contention, but I think we have to wait and see whether his unimpressive form since his injury is a permanent downturn or just a lull. And again, Tom Davies is an obvious candidate to get a call up sooner rather than later, but he's all about high-energy box-to-box play, so if you think Cook's game is not what we need then perhaps Davies's isn't either. As for the likes of Ward-Prowse and Chalobah, they're not bad players but I'm not totally sure that they'd be an upgrade on Livermore. Ward-Prowse is at least improving. Who knows what Baker and Loftus-Cheek will be up to?
Interest in Chelsea's two centre-backs. Personally think Tomori is the more obvious and probably combination gave Clarke-Salter the edge. A small thing but Juni must be really pleased to see a combination like this do so well. http://www.standard.co.uk/sport/foo...emand-after-englands-u20s-world-a3562451.html Actually quite liked Fry's performances too. Conolly is more a centre-back to me and Konsa attracting attention and hard to forget his former team mate is Joe Gomez as they the same age.
he's always injured sure and might be finished but he did better than Cook let's not exagerate, was voted player of the month 2 times and was top 3 in the league in terms of dribbling success. Wilshere will never have great numbers. more of a pre assist type of player. Anyway, my point was about Cook and I hope I'm wrong. I just wish ppl spoke more about Onomah who would really bring something different IMO.
Onomah is great but the problem is we have no idea where he will end up at the start of next season. Cook, we can presume he will be a regular for Bournemouth at least so as far as getting a senior call up anytime soon I would give Cook the advantage. Incidentally I did see Onomah already being linked with Celtic, Huddersfield and Brighton. http://www.caughtoffside.com/2017/0...man-in-demand-three-way-battle-for-loan-deal/
I have no issue with them being called up if they do well for clubs but they are going to have issues when they get there if our squad selection and first XI picks continue to extremely lack balance with regards to the players being selected. I would go as far as to say I would pick any of our U21 midfielders over Livermore. Simply offers nothing on the ball. This was obvious in the Germany friendly. Should never have started again after that.
Out of JWP, Chalobah, RLC, and Baker, I'd go for Baker. He can play as a CM and a CAM. He's two-footed and is an excellent free kick taker, which we don't have at the moment. So is JWP, but I like Baker's qualities better overall.
Henry Winter's written an article for today's Times about Solanke and, more broadly, Chelsea's inability to transition young players to their first team. It isn't a remarkably insightful article, but here's the text in case anyone's interested.
(Obviously there are tons of articles about England's U20s at the moment, many of them focusing on the lack of opportunities for them in the Premier League. I'm just copying that one in because it's behind a paywall.)
Maybe he is in the right division? He is most likely to play a lot of first team footy this year - if he can get and stay in the side and Boro have a succesful season then he could be playing regularly in the PL next year. None of the others feel like they will get the chance for a regular run of games
Yeah, read an article where Garry Monk basically saying there will be a pathway open for Fry and Chapman but naturally it's up to them to prove it. http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/sp...rst_team_role_for_Dael_Fry_and_Harry_Chapman/
For getting an England call up in the short term it's the wrong division. For his long term future, I agree it may be the right division.
Some team of the tournament type deals: Scouted Football: Squawka: AS: Wuilker Faríñez, Jonjoe Kenny, Santiago Bueno, Fikayo Tomori; Federico Valverde, Yángel Herrera, Nico De La Cruz, Ademola Lookman; Ricardo Orsolini, Dominic Solanke, Joshua Sargent.
Little bit surprised that nobody's mentioned Onomah. I know Scouted Football limited themselves to three players from each country, or perhaps he would have made the bench.
Good to see Kenny gets appreciated by everyone, except some of his own countrymen on here it seems during this tournament! Same goes for Cook come to mention it. You couldn't argue with any of those Venezuelans mentioned. I have to admit I underestimated them but those 3 in particular looked very talented footballers
I've rated Kenny since I saw him at the U17 Euros. I didn't think he did great in the first two games but was solid after that. I think he'll break through with Everton this up coming season.