WARNING: INTERNATIONAL BREAK AHEAD
There was a time – a long time – when good English players at unfashionable clubs would get repeatedly and demoralisingly ignored by England managers, who would then scramble to call them up the moment they took the fancy of a big team. Think, perhaps, of Paul Gascoigne, star of Newcastle’s midfield but ignored until a fortnight after his Tottenham debut, or Phil Jones, an international outcast during his breakout season at Blackburn but called up as soon as he darkened the door at Old Trafford, or Danny Ings, fast-tracked into the squad the instant he signed for Liverpool, or Matt Le Tissier, who despite his talent was barely chosen while he was at Southampton and, erm, never left.
No longer! Today is a new dawn, the situation turned in a trice upon its very head. Now English players can’t get in the squads at big clubs but get called up as soon as they move to smaller ones. Nathaniel Chalobah is the groundbreaker here, Gareth Southgate adding him to the senior squad just two games after he swapped Chelsea for Watford, and without having done anything more notable than being tricked into leaving a ball he should have kicked really hard into a goal. Still, this is a moment that will give hope to cold-shouldered big-club squad-padding everywhere.
Before Southgate took his seat at FA HQ the day had thrown up two significant questions: who are England playing again? And also, who can we say is replacing Wayne Rooney when Wayne Rooney was replaced in May?
The answer to the first question is away in Malta, the worst team in Group F and the only one already eliminated, and then at home to Slovakia, currently second in the table. The biggest game of the round however might be in Trnava, where Slovakia host third-place Slovenia at the same time England are in action in Ta’ Qali. If Slovenia lose and England beat the so-far pointless Maltese Gareth Southgate’s relentless charges would be six points ahead of the third-placed team – who might by then be Scotland, playing in Lithuania that evening – with three games to play and Slovenia due to visit Wembley in October, and thus teetering on the verge of guaranteeing their place in the group’s toppest twosome, and not far away from the verge of qualifying for the Russia-based sporting jamboree itself.
The man who has stepped into the breach now Rooney has retired, as in March when he was injured and in June when he was dropped, is Jermain Defoe, who will placate the ever-important get-out-yer-past-it demographic while also taking on important babysitting duties. “I did see the value of having some senior players who can help nurture the juniors as well as play a part,” explained Southgate.
Meanwhile rumours of a wildly premature call-up for Liverpool’s Trent Alexander-Arnold were quashed by his appearance in the released-slightly-earlier Under-21 squad to play Latvia on 5 September, where he joins Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Kyle Walker-Peters. There have, by way of context, been just seven hyphenated double-barrelled internationals in the entire 145-year history of the senior England team, starting with William Kenyon-Slaney in 1873 and ending, for now, with James Ward-Prowse. When it comes to English football two surnames have traditionally been considerably less popular than one, a reality never exposed so brutally as in the case of former manager Graham Taylor-Out. Alexander-Arnold’s time will surely come, though he could always speed up the process by moving somewhere less good.
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I UNITED it” – Zlatan Ibrahimovic, in typically understated fashion, announces his new one-year-deal with Manchester United with an image of himself dressed as a Jesus-like figure clasping hands with a big muscly devil – a tweet only exceeded in its ludicrously pretentious po-faced OTT pomposity by United’s official account later in the day.
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FIVER LETTERS
“Maybe Guardian Soulmates and Manchester City’s excruciatingly crass commercial endeavour could be combined to produce a Tunnel of Love? Any elaboration on this theme most welcome” – Mark Robinson.
“Can I be the first of 1,057 non-bloodthirsty ice hockey fans to point out that “body slam” is a wrestling term and not a hockey one. What Taylor Regan (Wednesday’s Fiver) does would be called variously a hit, a check, or a shoulder check. That said, the number of steps he took before contact means he should have received two minutes for charging” – Ed Taylor (and several other non-bloodthirsty ice hockey fans).
“I note that president Trump’s ‘bombastic style and frequent Twitter tirades have steered him into untruth a total of 1,057 times since taking office’ according to the Washington Post. Now, there’s a coincidence!” – Mike Dunton.
Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. And if you’ve nothing better to do you can also tweet The Fiver. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’the day is Mike Dunton.
BITS & BOBS
Modern football is weird, part one: Manchester United welcome Burton Albion to Old Trafford in the third round of the Carabao Cup after this morning’s not-at-all ludicrous 4am draw in China.
Modern football is weird, part two: Jean Michaël Seri’s Mr 10% Franklin Mala has accused PSG of deliberately driving up Barcelona’s fee for Nice midfielder.
Arsène Wenger says any hopes of a deal for Monaco’s Thomas Lemar have bitten the dust. “It’s dead because Monaco have closed the door,” sobbed the Arsenal manager.
STILL WANT MORE?
The Rumbelows Sprint Challenge in all its glory features in this week’s Classic YouTube.
A few elite footballers make millions but players such as Josip Vukovic and David Low – who earn little and are often paid late – are the norm across the globe, writes Richard Foster.
Ed Aarons, Marcus Christenson, Priya Ramesh, Fabrizio Romano and Emre Sarigul pick 16 excellent signings in an inflated transfer market. Cue a boatload of BTL whatabouttery.
Your very own Liam Rosenior on the transfer window: “We all suffer when matches are played with the transfer window open.”
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