Gareth Southgate has insisted Kyle Walker’s England career is not over despite the Manchester City defender being left out of the squad to face Bulgaria and Kosovo in favour of Aaron Wan-Bissaka.
Wan-Bissaka is in the senior squad for the first time since moving to Manchester United in the summer and is joined by the Aston Villa defender Tyrone Mings for the Euro 2020 qualifiers at Wembley on Saturday 7 September and Southampton three days later. Recalls for Chelsea’s Mason Mount and James Maddison of Leicester take the number of uncapped players to four.
There is a return for Liverpool’s Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain after his comeback from injury – the first time since March 2018 that the midfielder has been included.
The omission of Walker, a mainstay of the side that reached the semi-finals of the 2018 World Cup, raised most eyebrows, with the England manager explaining that he had left out the 29-year-old right-back to take a closer look at Wan-Bissaka and Liverpool’s Trent Alexander-Arnold.
“Without getting Trent’s head too big, too quickly, he’s got to be one of those we look to integrate and give more opportunity to,” Southgate said.
“So, it’s a bit like at a club – if we don’t make a pathway, then when are you ever going to put them in? With Aaron, [we’ve got] a completely different kind of player, so we’ve got Trips [Kieran Trippier] as a bit of cover around that and there’s no point bringing Kyle in if the intention is not to start him in the games.”
He added: “He’s a senior player and he’ll value the rest and recovery as much as anything else. But we could be in a different space in four weeks’ time because he’s started the season very well, he’s got competition for his place at his club and we’ve got that here. It’s a unique position to have four that are of a very high level, but two young ones as well. Probably two years ago, we waited until we had qualified and then evolved. I think during the Nations League we did it as we were going along and we think that’s the right route to go.”
Southgate was adamant Walker understood the reasons behind his omission and that the selection of Trippier and Wan-Bissaka did not necessarily mean they had moved ahead in the pecking order. “It depends on how well everybody does,” he said. “But I have not said to Kyle that that’s it.”
Maddison’s return after he was first called up along with Mount for the Nations League matches against Croatia and Spain last year is reward for his form since a disappointing summer with England Under-21s, when Aidy Boothroyd’s side were eliminated in the group stages of the European Championship. Wan-Bissaka was also in that squad and Southgate said they must learn from their experiences in Italy. “They had some good moments and some not so good moments, but that’s the development in football,” he said.
Southgate said the exit of the under‑21s, despite being one of the tournament favourites, had provided a lesson. “We must always have humility,” he said. “That’s a little bit down to their age. They’ve got to recognise it and learn from it.
“But we play Kosovo in the second game ; they’re a good team and they’ve got some really good players and the pride of a new nation. We can’t underestimate that sort of game.”
There was no place for Burnley’s Ashley Barnes, despite four goals in three Premier League matches this season, with Southgate explaining that the 29-year-old’s purple patch may have come too late.
“You’ve got to admire the quality of a lot of his finishing and the goalscoring record over a period of time,” he said. “But also, he’s 29, and we are going to struggle to hold back [Jadon] Sancho a lot longer – that’s with [Marcus] Rashford and [Raheem] Sterling and [Harry] Kane.”
Tom Heaton (Aston Villa), Jordan Pickford (Everton), Nick Pope (Burnley); Trent Alexander-Arnold (Liverpool), Ben Chilwell (Leicester), Joe Gomez (Liverpool), Michael Keane (Everton), Harry Maguire (Manchester United), Tyrone Mings (Aston Villa), Danny Rose (Tottenham), Kieran Trippier (Atletico Madrid), Aaron Wan-Bissaka (Manchester United); Ross Barkley (Chelsea), Jordan Henderson (Liverpool), James Maddison (Leicester), Mason Mount (Chelsea), Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (Liverpool), Declan Rice (West Ham), Harry Winks (Tottenham); Harry Kane (Tottenham), Jesse Lingard (Manchester United), Marcus Rashford (Manchester United), Jadon Sancho (Borussia Dortmund), Raheem Sterling (Manchester City), Callum Wilson (Bournemouth)
