Southgate 'ready for different challenge' as he names England squad
Southgate announced the players who will be joining him in the Middle East for the tournament, with the surprise inclusions of James Maddison (25), Conor Gallagher (22), and Callum Wilson (30) raising eyebrows around the country.
Whilst those players will be excited for a trip to their first major tournament with England, there will inevitably be some disappointed footballers - none more so than James Ward-Prowse (28), who narrowly misses out on his second consecutive tournament despite consistent form and a potent free kick weapon.
Others to miss out include the likes of Ivan Toney (26), Tammy Abraham (25), Fikayo Tomori (24), and Marc Guehi (22) - all of whom have won England caps in the last year.
Speaking about the omission of Ward-Prowse from the squad, Southgate explained to reporters: "With James, he’s really competing profile-wise with (Jude) Bellingham (19) and maybe to a lesser degree (Conor) Gallagher - I don’t see him in the same profile as (Declan) Rice (23) or (Kalvin) Phillips (26), they’re different types of players. He’s just behind those guys (Bellingham and Gallagher), frankly.
"It’s as simple as that. We’ve still got another round of games to get through so I’ve spoken to a few of the players to say that things can still change over the weekend.”
Plans have had to be free-flowing due to the nature of the tournament. For the first time, the World Cup will take place during the European season, and players across the continent will be playing for their clubs just days before taking to the pitches in Qatar.
Despite their experience at last year's Euros, Southgate is under no illusion that things will be the same this time around.
He said: “From the Euros, there’s loads of things we’ve learned. Loads of things we did right, loads of things that actually won’t apply in this tournament because it’s a different time of the year: it’s more condensed, we don’t have warm-up games, we’re going to be playing in different conditions heat-wise, so you’re always learning from every tournament.
"But also there are unique things around every tournament as well. We’ve got to make sure that [we’re ready] together.”
Southgate added: "The schedule is what it is, but we’ve got to refresh the players, we’ve got to excite them when they get through the door, we’ve got a period of time when we won’t set foot on the training pitch when they arrive because we travel on Tuesday (November 15th).
"We can only manage that when the players are with us. We understand the challenges for the clubs, now and after the tournament, and we’ve just got to make sure we focus on the bits we can control.”
England begin their campaign on Monday November 20th against Iran with ties against USA and Wales to come swiftly after.
