I'm not sure there is from most on here, it would have been nice if a couple of duals had stuck with us (Balogun, Broja and few younger options) to increase the pool. But essentially its just Fireburn that frets bout these things (he panics about our RB options!), and the bloke above is obviously the one that got banned a few weeks ago.
Yes Koumas is a striker , converted from midfield/winger after Under-16 level. His qualification is through his Dad's birthplace but I'm not sure Jason ever particularly considered himself Welsh (Cyrpriot/English parents) took a couple of years to commit to them and then regularly withdrew before retiring from international football in his twenties. Anyway that's one the FA is working on. There really aren't young english footballers breaking through scoring goals in the Premier league or Championship these days, or banging in goals in the lower divisions like Watkins and Toney a few years ago. So we can't afford to keep losing the likes of Balogun. Broja, Lookman. Koumas. Cadamarteri, Fraser, Biereth, Myles, Obi Martin and Conway to other countries (not much they could do about Balogun admittedly). Its not a short term concern but the long term is important too as I'm not going to suddenly stop caring about England in 2 years time and eventually this is going to catch up with us.
Danns is the younger player but is trusted with the CF role. You can see why with his link up and hold up play. I think it’s impressive for a player of that age. Joseph is another dual that we need to be giving opportunities and England have done a good job with him. England had two dual national battles at U17’s for centre forwards in Koumas’ age group. Tezgel and Donley. They had to be integrated and given chances among the other options. Now we are talking about three other CF’s from that same age group that SHOULD have been given a chance Considering they used the 2005 U19 phase to broaden the pool you would assume the FA have offered or will continue to offer avenues for the other options. It’s very hard to cap everyone and some will even bide their time before making a final decision (Fraser might wait until U21 level if he does see England as an option). It is a no win situation though. No guarantees the ones you are giving chances to will stick with you and you will constantly be blamed for not picking the random next option (who would have to have the desire to compete for their role).
Lookman (not a CF anyway) was given a load of opportunities by England at youth level and switched after his career stalled and he likely saw the options ahead of him. Broja was even rejected by Albania at youth level but had the ‘desire’ to prove them wrong to play for them. But he’s considered another ‘loss’. This is the problem with these stances there is zero situational context provided. Danish born Chido Obi with no English parents, who even now we don’t even know if he is eligible to represent us yet….. is another loss for us. You are basically demanding every eligible option plays for us (can’t cap everyone), sticks with us and has zero intentions for other nations that they have strong bonds with. I could understand an argument if it was about poor scouting from the FA or not giving opportunities when they are available. I’m not really sure what the argument is though. That we are picking the wrong players? If so who needs picking, when and who should be dropped for them? Or is the argument just that we have to keep every eligible option and not lose anyone ever?
This is objectively false. In the Championship you have Morgan Whittaker (23) with 17 goals, Jack Clarke (23) with 15 goals and Jonathan Rowe (20) with 12 goals. In League One you've got Ephron Mason-Clark (24) with 11 goals and Ruel Sotiriou (23) with 10. Then in League Two you've got Isaac Olaofe (24) with 17 goals, Jake Young (22) with 16 goals and Freddie Draper (19) with 10 goals. At age 21 Watkins managed 13 goals in League Two then the following two seasons in the Championship he hit 10 goals in each of them. Toney also managed 16 goals in League One at 23 so hardly anything special at the time, and even his 31-goal season in the Championship a few years later consisted of 11 penalties.
I was very impressed with Danns's first goal last night, not a rebound or scuffed shot but a top class finish. From the little of Donley I've seen for England I wasn't that impressed but he's already one of the best players in PL2 having just turned 19. He has 4 goals and 9 assists in 10 apps in PL2 and 2 goals and 3 assists in 3 apps the the EFL Trophy, which is against League One and League Two teams so senior professional. I think the Spurs's fans on here say that he's now playing midfield though, from the stats at least it seems that he's become more of a creative player than a goal scorer. It will be interesting to see how he does when he gets a loan.
Harry Kane could play until 2028, that’s plenty time for a replacement to come through. Strikers are generally late bloomers (Solanke, Toney and Watkins) are evidence of this. We’ve just won the u21 euros without playing a recognised striker. It’s really not worth worrying about.
Those guys a wingers though, I'm talking about centre forwards. We're plenty well off for wingers, Philogene is another one.
Well looking at current Under-19 alone with Ballard injured they should certainly be looking at picking Cadamarteri for the next squad. I'd hope he has been spoken to already regarding this, would like to think so. He's playing just as effectively at Championship as Ballard was League One and had scored bags of goals at youth and under-21 club level too Fraser and Koumas would have to switch now, I know they are chasing Koumas now but he was on fire for Liverpool from the very beginning of last season. Instead it was Ranel Young got picked thoughfor England! They didn't pursue him til last summer by which time Wales had already called him up and now its that much harder. Chido Obi was called up last season for three games and then only got a handful of minutes off the bench whereas everyone else in the squad started games. Hopefully that didn't put him off but not been seen for England since.Presumably he's as eligible now as he was a year ago? Broja wasn't picked til Under-19's for Albania and was big part of their Under-21's and on brink of senior call up before England got interested. Lookman just unfortunate the way his career panned out he drifted out of contention.
He made his Albania U19 debut at 17, Albania came in for him at a very young age, (for U16 level camps), at a stage before he was in contention for an England youth call up (he wasn't prolific for Chelsea's U18s). He made the switch to Vitesse and hit form (I'm not sure many people anticipated his rise), and obviously made his full Albania debut not that long after at 18 for the national team.
They were friendlies meaning he didn’t have to be eligible to play in them. Similar case to Yunus Musah who we even took to an U17 Euro finals but he couldn’t play competitively at all because of eligibility issues. Denmark have so many advantages in this case but it gets brought up constantly as an error of some sort on our part. Broja admits himself he was really struggling for form at Chelsea before Albania took him back again at U19 level. He would have rightly been nowhere near an England youth call. This is another case of looking back on a case with rose tinted spectacles. The Koumas case has already been covered. Not doing that again but it’s once again more after the fact critiquing.
If we are talking what can be done we have to accept the environment that surrounds us. We are going to have options that have an emotional pull for two or more nations. This means assumptions are not always as we assume. For instance, I have no idea who Lewis Koumas’ first choice nation is. I assumed it was Wales. Some seem to assume otherwise. We are going to have options that bloom later on and we might miss out on them. The FA are good at attempting to get options involved at U19-U21 level. Seen a few examples of that recently. We might also miss out on options because of setbacks in their career that make them feel another choice becomes beneficial to them. Or an instant starting role with another nation entices them like Gunn or Balogun. Those are just a few of the issues off the top of my head. What can we do? Make sure our Talent ID is good and we are identifying and confirming skillsets that we desire in a CF. Integrate the options into our set up and get them to understand the culture of our team (we do this very well imo). Lots of positive examples recently of many players buying into our approach and our teams evidencing this. Realise and be aware of dual nationals that could be brought into the set up at a later stage. Don’t keep players in the set up solely because they have been in the set up for long periods. Sometimes uncapped options get ignored at U19 to U21 level if they haven’t got caps in previous ages. We probably could have been more experimental at U20 level at times this season. I would say we need to pick a few CF’s in every squad. Having false 9 approaches tempts coaches to not pick enough CF’s. Will be interesting to see what Carsley does at U21 level in this next squad with Delap out (Cannon, Joseph etc). This post might be rambling and too long
I do think with Mcdermott in place though he at least seems switched on to these things. Since Ashworth left there's been no real joined up thinking in the set up, just individual coaches coming and going. Attempting Cannon to switch and approaching Charlie Crew even indicates they are making the effort hopefully. They need to make it a priority though, otherwise with the attrition rate to be the best in the world and win the world cup we'd need to be at least 25% better than other countries at producing talent, and that just isn't practicable.
You don't need the best team in the world on paper to win the World Cup or the Euros, you never have. You just need enough quality to be competitive with the best sides, then beyond that it comes down to coaching, squad balance and luck both on the pitch and often in the draw. Listen to what members of winning squads in the past have said and most, with a few exceptions, will say squad harmony/vibes is often a huge part too. Go through the last few international tournaments alone and you can see that none of Argentina 2022, Italy 2021 or Portugal 2016 were the best team on paper.
Not heard of Sotirou but he seems to represent Cyprus anyway so doesn't exactly contradict my point. League 2 is too low a standard to be meaningful. Maybe if they are in the divisional team of the season at age under 21 would be worth noting. Players are scouted so comprehensively by Academy clubs nowadays though it seems unlikely many would slip through the net and end up starting their career at that level. Anyway a 24 year old scoring 9 or 10 goals in a season is hardly something to get excited about, unless your nation is Gibraltar
Sotirou stopped representing Cyprus at youth level in 2021, he's quite clearly waiting to see where his career goes before committing to them. I'm referencing these players in comparison to your examples of Watkins and Toney when talking about prolific EFL players because they were scoring similar numbers of goals at that level at the same age.
As expected, Louis Zecevic-John & Edward Ibrovic-Fletcher both called up to Serbia's U16s: https://fss.rs/kad-srce-kaze-srbija...ore-dolaze-iz-arsenala-i-mancester-junajteda/
Mike Biereth 23/24 - Pure striker https://t.co/TdoljZXuly— 🚶➡️ (@Lhastim3) March 5, 2024 This guy looks a real player. Unless he's already set on Denmark I see no reason why we shouldn't be calling him into the U21s this month.
Jamaica head coach Heimir Hallgrimsson says he would “love” to have Mason Greenwood playing for his side and confirmed he has spoken to the Manchester United forward about a switch.https://t.co/HjMqy9OjVP— The Athletic | Football (@TheAthleticFC) March 5, 2024 Jamaica head coach Heimir Hallgrimsson says he would “love” to have Mason Greenwood playing for his side and confirmed he has spoken to the Manchester United forward about a switch. The Athletic reported in October that the Jamaican Football Federation (JFF) was open to the idea of Greenwood representing the Caribbean nation, which he is eligible to play for via his father, Andrew. Greenwood has one senior cap for England but is allowed to switch nations under FIFA rules. “I really don’t like to talk about ‘what if’, but this, of course, has come to our mind,” Hallgrimsson told The Athletic at a CONCACAF Nations League preview event in Dallas on Tuesday. “I would love to have him in my team. Like all coaches, I would like to have the best players in our team, but it’s always up to the player himself if he wants to do it.” Greenwood has scored seven goals and provided five assists this season while on loan at La Liga side Getafe. United announced in August that the 22-year-old would no longer play for the club and a move away from Old Trafford was sought. This decision was made following a lengthy internal investigation, which started in February after the UK Crown Prosecution Service discontinued its case against Greenwood for attempted rape, assault occasioning actual bodily harm, and controlling and coercive behaviour. Greenwood denied all the charges. Asked about whether Greenwood’s legal case would impact the decision to bring him into the Jamaica team, Hallgrimsson said: “That will then be up to the Federation. It’s not the coach who is going to answer for something like that. I’m not an expert in this. “I just look at the person. I think what he has gone through in the year and a half since it happened is worse than I can imagine, being in the press and on social media. I can only imagine what he has been going through. The case went through stages and the case was dropped, so it’s not up to me or anyone else to judge him on that. “It was no less a person than Jesus Christ who said, those who are without sin should throw the first stone. Whatever happened, everybody at least deserves a second chance. And he knows that all eyes are on him. “So it’s a big pressure and I am happy for the player that he is coming back because it is probably a trauma. It’s difficult to come (back) from, so I give him my support at least. He must have a strong mentality to start to play again and start to play so well.” FIFA rules state that players can switch international allegiance as long as they have made fewer than three senior appearances for one nation before the age of 21 and have not played for them for at least three years. Greenwood has only represented England’s senior team once, coming on as a 78th-minute substitute away against Iceland on September 5, 2020, during a UEFA Nations League match. Jamaica, meanwhile, face the U.S. in the semi-final of the CONCACAF Nations League in Dallas on March 21. They could face either Mexico or Panama in the final or third-place play-off three days later.
Mika Biereth ('03, ST) on his decision to represent Denmark:"There's no way I'm going to change it. This is my final decision. I am very happy to be here with the U21 national team, and I hope for more in the future."#ForDanmark #COYG pic.twitter.com/gZpOAzwd49— Danish Scout (@DanishScout_) March 22, 2023 Forget that
🔴⚪️ Tommy Conway, called up by U21 Scotland team. At the moment, there’s still no agreement over new deal with Bristol City — but no final decision made yet.Several clubs are monitoring Conway in Premier League and other top leagues as current contract expires in June 2025. 🏴 pic.twitter.com/8DwuCjZa1p— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) March 6, 2024
Mason Greenwood would be better waiting around for a couple of years till Southgate has gone. Playing for Jamaica has no benefits