Hardly the end of the world if he's gone. Kane, Rashford, Toney, Nketiah and Abraham is more than good enough to see us through the next two tournaments and there's always a chance someone else will break through in the next few years to become Kane's long term successor. Who knows if the lad will ever even better his goal tally from this season, when he only managed 3 in the championship last year.
I'm more concerned with the bigger picture to be honest. Maybe he is only a one season wonder but he's in form now and is worthy of a senior call up. If our manager and FA aren't acting on this, they need sacking.
Yes and hopefully Greenwood will be allowed to get his career back on track now his charges have been dropped.
That would be crazy. The charges were dropped and I don't think we can afford to turn our nose up at a young two footed RVP. I am sure Jamaica would be delighted though. This could have been the sharp shock needed for him to grow up and turn his life around.
I know crying shame. Had the potential to be one of the best but like other young proteges he has thrown it away
On one hand he could be genuinely injured. I think the squad met up on Monday? If so then he would've been seen by England's physios. I suppose the extrapolation if you read into his 'cryptic' tweet last week is that after Rashford pulled out injured and no replacement was made, he's packed his bags. That's pure guesswork, however. Personally I tend to agree with this. I'm happy to admit that I could be wrong but I estimate his future will be around the level of DCL, Abraham and Wilson etc. The other partial defence of Southgate that I'd make is that by not replacing Rashford and Mount, Toney and Maddison are much more likely to get minutes. There have been complaints about Southgate not integrating new players but this affords greater opportunity to do so.
Quite interesting to see the reaction of Italian fans on Twitter to Retegui’s after match interview. Their goal scorer could only do interviews in Spanish.
https://www.football.london/arsenal-fc/news/folarin-balogun-usmnt-england-arsenal-26545969 More on the Balogun situation….doesn’t sound like Carsley is too concerned who seems to be making a good effort which is good to see.
Carsley makes a good point about selecting him for the U21s despite playing PL2 football at the time. I’d like to think that wouldn’t go unnoticed.
I thought England would have tried to have a look at Williamson this break, especially as is a July 2006 birth as well so is one of the youngest players in the club age group; and been getting lots of great experience this year (and earning it) which has seen older keepers being released to not block his pathway
USA manager has confirmed to have had talks with Balogun, so it seems he’s not been honest about being injured, this point it’s highly likely he is going to switch allegiance, the Americans have probably snivelled and promised him the world to him. He unfollowed England a few weeks back on Instagram too so that’s that.
Zaha is the only dual national who got away for me, the only one who was good enough and continued to be so and would have been a squad regular. Obviously younger example now like Musiala who we weren't able to secure, but as soon as he signed for Bayern that was always unlikely to happen. Talk of calling up second rate players to cap tie them misses the point for me, none of those mentioned in this thread would give us any real depth
He is a difficult one because ideally you'd like to keep him - but if the USA are going to sya to him now we'll call you up for every squad from now on (which they seem to do to cap tie people) then it's hard for us to compete with that. He may be one that joins the Zaha pile where we could have done more, but ultimately he is in every U21 squad and that is his level for now. Would he even allow himself to be cap tied currently....I personally think he'll just sit on it currently for another season and then decide with an eye on the 2026 WC
He of course had that incident with Ravel Morrison in the 21s but aside from that I'm not sure. There's been so many rumours & claims of attitude issues over his career that it's difficult to know whether any of them are actually true.
It was also reported in one of the papers way back in the disastrous Euro 2013 under 21's he was confronted by Jordan Henderson at half time during one of the games for his poor attitude. Again though, never really sure about the full truth. Clearly there was something going on though with his England career as he never played for the under 21's after 2013, despite being eligible for the 2015 tournament. I don't think he really classes as a big miss either, he'd have added some caps but he's a mid-table player happy in his mid-table comfort zone where he turns it on periodically for bouts of forms. Talented for sure but not consequential for England. He would have warranted picking for the 2018 squad, but that's about it. Probably the same kind of thing as Victor Moses who'd have definitely got some caps for us over the years without ever being important.
Nketiah is too old but he’s the all time top scorer for the u21s. It’s not actually that long since Balogun had a terrible record for the 21s and most people were wondering why he kept getting played.
Seems to have gone under the radar, but I notice ex-England youth international Felix Nmecha is in the main Germany squad. Quite a rise for him this season. Also emblematic of Germany's lack of top players developed between the '97 and '02 period that's been hitting them the past couple of tournaments - though they seem to be getting on track again.