The reason this team is doing so well is because Southgate hasn’t allowed the media to pick the team for him. Eriksson Capello or Hodgson would have probably rang up Gerrard or Lampard to come out of retirement if one of the influential pundits or newspapers had suggested it. The media’s obsession with certain players from certain teams was absolutely sickening from about 2004 - 2016. The players knew that they were undroppable and the rest of the squad outside the 11 knew they wouldn’t play. Anyone who made it on the fringes was identified as a scapegoat if ever we didn’t win. Gerrard heads it back to Suarez and England go out? ‘It’s because Baines wasn’t as good as Ashley Cole’. The selection of Carragher and Upson for 2010 over Lescott and Jagielka was a complete joke which came home to roost when England were practically conceding goals from every goal kick from Neuer when we lost.
If the ‘normal’ England way of selecting a squad for this tournament had occured again then Pickford may not have even been in it, the media had anointed Hart and Butland as their favourites. Clyne and Alexander Arnold would be in over Trippier, Smalling and Jones would be starting, Lallana would be in the team regardless of fitness, as would Wilshere, Rooney would probably still be around the squad (if he hadn’t of moved to Everton and had stayed at United), they’d be begging for Milner to be recalled (which they did), and they’d be pushing for some young prodigy like Sessegmom to be included (which they did) For once however an England manager has ignored all of them and just picked his own squad irrespective of the club they play at and lo and behold the whole country is behind them, there’s no cliques, and they are actually performing well.
On the eve of the Tunisia game there was an article from an ex RS (might have been Fowler) demanding that Danny Welbeck has to start against Tunisia. It’s this sort of complete rubbish that has influenced poor England managers in the past. We saw it in 2010, Barry had played the qualifiers in midfield, with Gerrard on the left wing. In the build up to the USA game a few RS friendly media outlets start complaining that Stevie G isn’t being used properly and that England should play 442 with Lampard and Gerrard. Lo and behold we played that and got out played by the USA.
Well done Gareth Southgate for completely ignoring the utterly clueless English media.