sport news Gareth Southgate has a MAJOR headache after a lack of minutes for English ... trends now
Gareth Southgate has a squad to select this week, so nobody will be more painfully aware that English players are desperately short of Premier League action.
Only 57 of the 220 players to start the last round of fixtures in our top flight qualify for Southgate’s team — and six of them are goalkeepers.
The percentages tighten even further among the so-called elite, the Premier League’s traditional Big Six. Tottenham, not long ago a haven for English footballers, and Liverpool started with one each. The Manchester clubs both with two.
Fulham started at Arsenal on Saturday without a single player available to Southgate. Everton, with six starters against Wolves, boasted the most. They were the only team more than half English, and with neither a point nor a goal on the board are not a particularly good advert for reversing the trend.
It is a trend well set. In fact, so well set that its acceleration barely elicits the raising of an eyebrow. It’s the modern game, after all.
England boss Gareth Southgate will name his squad for the latest internationals this week
Harry Maguire is one of Southgate's trusted England players who are lacking regular matches
Levi Colwill could be promoted to the senior squad amid a shortage of centre back options
Chelsea were first to field a team without an English player back in 1999. We all understand how internationalism is central to the Premier League’s success, its global appeal and ability to ride out crises like the pandemic relatively unscathed.
For a succession of England bosses, however, it has become a headache. Across the first three weeks of this season, only 28 per cent of all Premier League starters were English. This is down from 31 per cent across last season and down from 36 per cent in 2020-21. The rate is alarming.
Central defence is the area of most concern for Southgate, and has been for some time, hence the endless debate around Harry Maguire, the Manchester United defender with no competitive football since the barely competitive 7-0 win against North Macedonia in June.
Of the five specialist centre-halves selected for the World Cup less than a year ago, John Stones is
