Ahead of the big official announcement on Wednesday, Pies thought we’d have a crack at whittling down our own England squad for the 2018 World Cup.
No waffle, no flim-flam, no player-by-player deliberation; just the 23 men that we’d currently take to Russia if we were thrust into Gareth Southgate’s size 9 brogues for some reason…
Goalkeepers
1. Jordan Pickford
2. Jack Butland
3. Nick Pope
Defenders
4. Kyle Walker
5. Ryan Bertrand
6. Phil Jones
7. John Stones
8. Gary Cahill
9. Harry Maguire
10. Trent Alexander-Arnold
11. Ashley Young
Midfielders
12. Eric Dier
13. Jordan Henderson
14. Fabian Delph
15. Jonjo Shelvey
16. Adam Lallana
17. Raheem Sterling
18. Dele Alli
19. Jesse Lingard
Forwards
20. Harry Kane
21. Marcus Rashford
22. Jamie Vardy
23. Danny Welbeck
Yep, that’s it (until you ask us again in half-an-hour’s time). Decent mix of balance and cover, youthful exuberance and proven quality – and no Jack Wilshere. Deal with it, chump!
We’d love to have slotted James Milner in but, alas, it doesn’t look like he’ll be un-retiring any soon, and we also dithered over including Ademola Lookman (why the bloody hell not?) but just couldn’t wangle him a place on the plane.
Same goes for Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Jamaal Lascelles. Maybe next time.
What sayeth thou Pies fans? If you had to pick your England World Cup squad right here, right now – who would be making the cut?
Feel free to copy+paste the following as a template then leave your squad in the comments for perusal…
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