England manager Thomas Tuchel and Liverpool striker Darwin Nunez (Photo by Getty Images)
In his exclusive column for CaughtOffside, former Aston Villa and Liverpool striker Stan Collymore discusses some of football’s biggest talking points, including the latest England squad, Liverpool’s Champions League and Carabao Cup blows, Enzo Fernandez’s links to Real Madrid, and much more.
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Thomas Tuchel must get rid of England’s big club bias
Thomas Tuchel in training ahead of his first match as England manager (Photo by PA)
I have no problems with Dan Burn being called up to the England squad. His form for Newcastle has been very good for a while, although he is not going to be the future of English defenders – that will be players like Marc Guehi, Levi Colwill, Ezri Konsa and Jarrell Quansah. However, it is a great story for him, winning the Carabao Cup on Sunday before getting his first call-up. He is a Harry Maguire-esque central defender that is no nonsense, and he will fit in.
Miles Lewis-Skelly is another that I have no problems with – if he is going to be the future for Arsenal and England. However, I think that if he was someone that played for a team in the lower half of the Premier League, and he had the same sample size of matches as he has had, I’m not so sure that he would not be in the squad.
We need to start rewarding players that play well regardless of the team that they play for in the Premier League, and that is a massive argument with the Nottingham Forest boys. For me, Morgan Gibbs-White was undoubtedly only brought in to the England squad as a late call-up because of the media attention that his omission received. I like to think that I have a voice as much as any of the other big voices when it comes to England and English football, and I am certainly someone that reacted when I saw that there were no Forest players included in the squad. Gibbs-White, Elliot Anderson and Callum Hudson-Odoi all deserved to be called up, they have all played every week for a team that are third in the Premier League.
I think questions have to be asked about who is watching matches. There was already a story that Tuchel has not come over to watch many…
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