Social Media. Pub. Phone-In. Tabloid. Town square. When it comes to England, no one’s ever happy. We want a team picked on form and not reputation. We want to do away with the big club bias. We want a never ending new dawn of young and hungry picked over tried and tested. We want two wingers. That’s a non-negotiable. We want pAsSiOn. We want the new, exciting one that hasn’t been picked and when he is, we want the next one.
But what does this mean when you put someone under the warm spotlight of picking an actual team? Do the compromises start creeping in?
We asked 100 England fans to pick their England X1 using the FotMob Lineup Builder. Here’s what we found.
Bellingham and who else?
‘Can we have the old Jude Bellingham back?’ seems to be the consensus. Not the Bernabéu Bellingham. The free-scoring, Champions League-winning, El Clásico-owning, messiah-like Bellingham from the adverts. But the Dortmund Bellingham. The box-to-box dream. Combative, boundless energy, ballerina feet in the midfield minefields. The missing link who seemed to knit it all together between Declan Rice and the endless bounty of attacking options at England’s disposal.
100 out of 100 have him starting, but a surprisingly high 73 out of 100 have Europe’s foremost number ten playing in a deeper role, opening the door for England to include another attacking talent.
England’s most free-scoring tournament under Gareth Southgate, at Qatar 2022, kicked off with Bellingham in a deeper role. But does that Bellingham still exist? Does it make any sense to move a player who scores and creates so freely for Real Madrid into a more disciplined role? Is it naive to think he still has that discipline? With the current crop of centre midfielders available, is it a case of… who else?
There’s always the call for overhaul. To be brave and back the young Lions, but none of the new breed of centre midfielders seem to have fully earned our trust yet. Kobbie Mainoo looked assured at last summer’s Euros but a patchy season sees him only make 16 teams. It’s too early for Adam Wharton with 12 and despite impressive debuts, Curtis Jones makes just one team and Angel Gomes isn’t even considered.
Play two bl**dy wingers!
The English love a winger. Paint on their boots, rampaging up and down the line, turning a full back inside out and whipping the ball into the mixer. To pick a team with anything other than two natural wide men is, well, for want of a better word, woke. And with Bukayo Saka and Anthony Gordon in our ranks, it’s a no-brainer isn’t it? Well, no. Only eight from 100 people surveyed picked them together. The debate about the balance of the side rumbled on all last summer but it still seems fans aren’t sure what the solution is. Grealish, Rashford, Foden, Palmer, Rogers, Bowen, Eze, Gittens. All feature in that role across our 100 teams. It’s a problem England have been wrestling with ever since Ryan Giggs decided he was definitely Welsh. All while the rest of the world couldn’t care less about wingers. Here’s a fun fact: No one has ever won the World Cup with two out-and-out wide-men. Take a look.
It’s a joke!
If you want to feel loved and supported by English fans and media, the absolute best position is to not be picked. The clamour is real. From Jack Grealish in Euro 2020 through James Maddison, Phil Foden, Cole Palmer and now Morgan Gibbs-White. There was a period last season when, pumped up by a few decent displays, Rio Ferdinand claimed that James Ward-Prowse and Raheem Sterling should retire from England after being left out of the squad. In almost all instances, fast forward six months and the player in question is either no longer being mentioned, or they’re now the one the fans want dropped in favour of the new hot thing.
Our 100-strong focus group is an anti-hysteria machine. Gibbs-White may have received a late call up to Thomas Tuchel’s first England squad this week as a replacement but he made it into just two out of 100 teams. Morgan Rogers made 20, Phil Foden 44, Cole Palmer 80 and Bellingham made them all. So that would make Gibbs-White, excellent player that he is, fifth in the pecking order to play No. 10 for England. A season in the Champions League and he may just leapfrog a few. But for now, away from the Talksport reels with “Disgrace”, “Snub”, “Slams” and “Joke” in the title that they love to churn out every squad announcement, it kinda just makes sense doesn’t it?
Time for a new dawn!
The argument of form over reputation and of favouring players from big clubs will rear its head time and time again. But the thing about reputations, and shirts at the biggest clubs, is that you have to earn them.
The only area our 100 fans felt we needed real change was at full back and this is more out of necessity.
Trent Alexander-Arnold wins the right-back vote with 60 over veteran Kyle Walker, with 28. The left-back vote count reads like a sad election. Lewis Hall picks up 28 votes. Hapless Luke Shaw still gets 20. 18 year-old Myles Lewis-Skelly wins the day with 30 votes. Branthwaite, Colwill and Konsa fail to trouble the tried and tested Euros’ partnership at centre back.
In our survey’s ‘Most Selected XI’, Harry Kane and Rice make 98 teams. Saka, 96. Pickford, 92. Guéhi and Stones are the most selected defensive partnership with 84 and 72 picks, respectively.
Add Bellingham’s 100, Palmer’s 80 and with Foden’s 44 ousting Gordon’s 36 and you are getting dangerously close to the old guard of England’s Euro 2024 campaign.
So, after ONE HUNDRED different permutations it seems we don’t want a new dawn, we’re not that bothered about form over reputation, or big club bias, or giving youth a chance, or playing two wingers and we can’t agree at all on who should be starting. We just want to attack a bit more. Hear that Tommy!?
To try the FotMob line-up builder yourself, open – this link – from a web browser or head to fotmob.com and look to the right of the page.
