sport news IAN LADYMAN: Gareth Southgate needs to select James Maddison for the World Cup trends now

Gareth Southgate’s growing number of critics say the England manager is set in his ways. They say he is too wedded to a three-man defensive system when up against good teams.

They say he refuses to countenance an alternative to Harry Maguire and that Raheem Sterling always gets a game no matter how good, bad or indifferent his club form.

Southgate’s response to this is twofold. He points to tournament results — a World Cup semi-final and European Championship final — and he also talks of the value of consistency and loyalty. It is a fair riposte. For example, questions were being asked of Maguire and Sterling before the Euro 2020 tournament and both went on to contribute fully to a successful summer.

There is, however, a fine line between consistency and stubbornness and if Southgate does not select James Maddison in his squad for Qatar that is announced on Thursday then he will have fallen the wrong side of it.

This week’s squad will be one comprising 26 players, rather than the usual 23. This is to give all competing nations a safeguard against issues with Covid.

With this in mind, it is actually harder to put together a squad without Maddison in it than it is to write down a list of 26 players that does include the Leicester player. If Maddison does not get on the plane then who makes it ahead of him? His Leicester team-mate Harvey Barnes? Jarrod Bowen? James Ward-Prowse? On current form, it would be an absurd call from a man not prone to making many.

There is much to be said for an inter-national manager knowing the spine of his team a few months short of a major tournament. Injuries and poor form have muddled that process for Southgate on this occasion. There was a time when we could have gone: Pickford, Maguire, Stones, Rice, Henderson, Sterling, Kane. But no longer.

Equally, big tournaments traditionally offer up opportunities for wildcard players to emerge from nowhere to grab a chance and drag a country along with them.

For example, England’s progress to the semi-final of the 1990 World Cup is remembered for many things, one of them being David Platt’s volleyed goal against Belgium in the last 16. What is less clearly remembered is that Platt had made only one England start before that day and that his goal was his first for his country. It not only went on to define his career

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