Gareth Southgate defends omitting emerging talent and warns he will not hand out easy England caps

Borussia Dortmund’s Jadon Sancho was tipped for a call-up ( EPA )

Gareth Southgate has warned England’s young players that he does not intend to hand out easy international caps, having decided against debut call-ups for the likes of Phil Foden and Jadon Sancho.

The England manager named his 23-man squad for forthcoming matches against Spain and Switzerland on Thursday and largely kept faith with those who achieved the national team’s best World Cup finish in 28 years.

Southgate’s five changes to the squad that reached the semi-finals in Russia did not include the likes of Manchester City’s Foden, Borussia Dortmund’s Sancho or Leicester City’s James Maddison.

When asked whether he had considered calling up young, previously untested players, Southgate asked: “What have they done to warrant an England senior call-up? We’re as excited by them as anyone else, but given the profile of some of those lads at the moment we’ve got to be really careful.

“I think those guys have a got a good mentality and can cope with most things, but there are issues. How much are they going to play for their clubs? So if I’m going to elevate them internationally I have to ask is that realistic? 

“Are they ahead of the likes of [Nathaniel] Chalobah, who has around 100 England youth caps and should progress again in the Premier League, and [Joe] Gomez and [Luke] Shaw. We have quite a depth of talent.

Philip Foden was a key part of England Under-17s’ World Cup win (Getty)

“If I look at the Under-21’s there’s [Ben] Chilwell, [Demarai] Gray, Maddison going in there now. Solanke is a player we have high hopes for who needs to be playing, Mason Mount should be in that group. It should be harder.” 

Southgate has previously given debuts to young players like Tammy Abraham, Dominic Solanke and Ruben Loftus-Cheek despite their tender years and lack of experience at the highest level. However, the England manager warned this policy will change and claimed that the threshold for an international call-up should be higher.

Ruben Loftus-Cheek was part of the England squad in Russia (Getty Images)

“It’s been too easy to get into the England squad for some of the youngsters over the last 12, 24, and 36 months,” he said. “They’ve gone in and done brilliantly, but what you want is real competition that makes it really hard to get in. It’s very difficult to pick a 17-year-old who’s had 10 minutes of first-team football. You’re talking about replacing senior players with some 17-year-old’s who haven’t played Premier League football. 

“The comparison is Spain. We’re going to be playing Spain who have to replace David Silva and Iniesta, and the questions are: is it Koke, Fabregas, Saul or Thiago Alcantara? It depends how good we want to be and what level we want to challenge it, but that’s a clear indication of the task we’ve got.”