There are 39 weeks until the start of Euro 2024 in Germany and barring a freakish set of results, England will be there.
Given they have reached a final, semi-final and quarter-final in their past three major international tournaments — with the same manager in charge — you would expect them to have a settled side and a decent idea of who will line up in Germany next June.
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That is true for most of the XI: Harry Kane, Jude Bellingham, Bukayo Saka, Declan Rice, John Stones and Jordan Pickford are surely in it, injuries permitting, then form and fitness will dictate whether Kyle Walker, Luke Shaw, Marcus Rashford, Phil Foden, Jack Grealish and others make up the rest of the side.
At this moment in time, however, there is one huge question: who lines up in central defence alongside Stones?
Harry Maguire has played just 23 minutes of football this season, having dropped down the pecking order so sharply at Manchester United that they were happy to sell him this summer — a move to West Ham never materialised.
Last season, Maguire only started eight Premier League matches but retained his place for the World Cup and was still in Southgate’s XI for the internationals in March and June despite being a back-up for United.
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Such is Southgate’s loyalty to Maguire, he plays almost as frequently for England as he does for his club. Since the start of the World Cup last November, Maguire has started nine games for England and 11 for United. In terms of minutes, it’s 790 for England and 1,109 for club; surely an unsustainable imbalance when looking toward next summer’s Euros.
Southgate will give Maguire every chance to prove he is fit and sharp enough and perhaps there is a scenario where Maguire leaves United in January permanently or on loan, but if the status quo continues, there will come a tipping point. In that scenario, who would Southgate turn to?
The answer is not as obvious as it might have been a few months ago given England’s other centre-back options at the World Cup. Eric Dier, Conor Coady and Ben White went to Qatar. Dier has now been frozen out at Tottenham Hotspur. Coady is injured having dropped down to the Championship with Leicester City, perhaps ruling himself out anyway. Arsenal’s White has not been called up since leaving Qatar midway through the tournament.
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That’s three centre-backs down and the next cab off the rank was Tyrone Mings, who is unlikely to play again this season for Aston Villa after suffering an anterior cruciate ligament injury.
With Stones also currently sidelined with a hip problem, Southgate may have been tempted to check Tony Adams’ availability for the September internationals against Ukraine tonight and Scotland on Tuesday, but it turns out there are four other English centre-backs available who have been called up to the squad.
Marc Guehi, Fikayo Tomori, Lewis Dunk and Levi Colwill have just eight caps between them (four for Guehi, three for Tomori, one for Dunk) and varying levels of experience in the club game. The next few days will be an audition for them to show they have the attributes and temperament to step up in an England shirt.
Fikayo Tomori
Tomori made his debut for England back in November 2019 when he was a fresh-faced Chelsea pup coming off the back of an excellent loan spell in the Championship with Derby County. Since then, he has won as many league titles with AC Milan (one) as he has had starts for England.
But it is Tomori’s performances in the Champions League that have probably counted against him in what has been a 12-month absence from Southgate’s squad. He endured a nightmare two games against former club Chelsea in the group stages of last season’s competition, with a 3-0 defeat at Stamford Bridge followed by a humiliating 18th-minute red card at San Siro as Graham Potter’s Blues ran out 2-0 winners.
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Overall, it has been a hugely successful time in Milan for Tomori — there is befuddlement and consternation in Italy that Tomori has not been called up by England — but the 25-year-old is still learning his game and has weaknesses to iron out.
He is a very aggressive, proactive defender, which Milan like because they play with a high line; they need Tomori to step out in front of his man and put pressure on strikers and the ball. He likes to engage early and it suits his strength and explosiveness, although sometimes he can be suspect positionally and is not the best in the air.
Three caps in four years and just two call-ups since October 2021 are surprisingly low numbers for a player of his quality, but with so many England centre-backs having vacated the scene, he could become a regular in the squad.
Marc Guehi
Guehi is ahead of Tomori in the pecking order having been called up for the March, June and now September internationals post-World Cup. Guehi played 90 minutes against Malta in June, although he did not have much to do, with Malta not registering a single shot in a 4-0 defeat.
Guehi came through the England youth setup from under-16s upwards, won the World Cup with the under-17s and played 16 times for the under-21s while being schooled at Chelsea’s academy. He has been one of the most impressive and consistent young centre-backs in the Premier League for Crystal Palace over the past two seasons and has almost all the attributes Southgate would want in a defender.
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He is very comfortable on the ball, can bring it out from the back, wins a lot of tackles, is strong, quick and oozes composure. At 23, he already has almost 150 senior appearances under his belt and has been earmarked as a future England captain by Roy Hodgson and a Champions League player by Patrick Vieira.
It would not be a huge surprise to see him make a move in the near future (Spurs are long-term admirers), but he has three years left on his Palace contract and is enjoying playing regularly.
At 5ft 11in, he is not the tallest and not the greatest in the air yet either, but Southgate clearly sees plenty in him (he has previously praised Guehi’s temperament and his composure on and off the ball) and for someone so young, he has the potential to go far with England.
Levi Colwill
At the age of 20, Colwill is the second youngest player in the squad behind Bellingham. With only 21 Premier League appearances, he lacks experience, but he is now in Chelsea’s starting XI and helped England win the Under-21 European Championship for the first time since 1984 in the summer (they didn’t concede a goal in the tournament).
What may count against Colwill going towards the Euros is that he isn’t playing at centre-back for his club. Mauricio Pochettino has been playing him as the left-back in a 4-2-3-1 with Ben Chilwell on the wing in front of Colwill and Thiago Silva partnering Axel Disasi in the middle.
On the ball, Colwill has looked very good, playing through pressure and finding nice line-breaking passes out of defence. Defensively he has had good and bad moments. His mistake leading to Luis Diaz’s goal against Liverpool was a low moment, but he recovered well during that game and got the better of Mohamed Salah as it went on.
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He is clearly still learning, but there have been plenty of flashes of his talent. You also wonder if he would feel more comfortable at centre-back for England than he does at left-back for Chelsea.
Pochettino is a fan — he said in July that Colwill can become one of the greatest centre-backs in the country — and the player is clearly enjoying life under his new manager, too. “He’s such a good manager and he will push me, he won’t let me have any off days, that’s what I need,” Colwill said this week.
He and Dunk rated highly last season for possession stats, which comes as no surprise given how proactive Brighton — where Colwill was on loan in 2022-23 — are in possession.
Lewis Dunk
Dunk, aged 31, is the outsider on paper here. He never played for the under-21s or any England youth side. He won his only cap in November 2018 in a 3-0 friendly victory over the USA at Wembley. He partnered Michael Keane in central defence behind Fabian Delph in midfield, in what was Wayne Rooney’s final international match.
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Not only has Dunk not played for England since, he had not been called up either, much to the dismay of Brighton supporters, until finally getting the call in June only to have to withdraw through injury.
Both he and England could not have changed more since. Dunk spoke this week of a huge change in mentality among the England squad since he was last there, talking now about winning tournaments instead of thinking how far they can progress. He himself has transformed from a deep-lying, big-clearance centre-back to a ball-playing one, who Roberto De Zerbi calls one of the best defenders in Europe.
Dunk said this week: “I see football in a completely different way since the new manager has come in. The idea of what I did before, I thought it made sense, but when you learn something completely different, you believe in it and this makes sense.
“It’s just the style of play. All our games now are about pressure, playing with opposition teams when they’re pressing high or pressing low. It’s when to pass the ball, the timing of that, the timing of movements.”
Brighton are not England. England are not Brighton. But Dunk’s versatility, the attributes he has honed, his experience and his leadership (he has been Brighton’s captain since 2019) will all impress Southgate.
In the absence of three senior figures in Coady, Mings and Dier, enter Dunk.
All of which makes it not a very obvious answer at all as to who should step up to England’s defensive ranks for the Euros next summer. The next few days may give us a few clues.
Additional reporting: Mark Carey, Matt Woosnam, Liam Twomey and James Horncastle
(Top photos: Getty Images)
