Mings is a good defender. He had a massive last season for Villa and has started this season decently well. His inclusion seems justified when you consider the competition. Southgate seems to base his decisions on merit and England fans should be happy about it.
I generally agree with this, which makes him better than most England managers by defult. My main issue was that its a little too early to start picking him over the likes of Tarkowsk, Mee & Dunk, although I am not against the principle of him being picked at all.
Except none of them are British citizens.
As I just mentioned, at least some of his Grandparents have British Citizenship and all of them (unless they where born outside of Jamaica) where born on British ruled territory at the time of their birth. So as far as I am aware (and correct me if I am wrong about this), that would make them all eligible for British Citizenship.
Both were English, something Bailey has no claim to being.
Barnes moved to England as a child and started his career at Watford.
Hargreaves parents were English, his Dad played for Bolton.
Bailey's grandparents lived in England for a bit, that's literally it. Neither of his grandparents were English, his parents were not born in England, Bailey was not born in England, nor has he ever lived there. It's completely different. He doesn't come close to qualifying.
At the time both of them where first selected for England, you could not really call them English in the traditional sense at least (i.e. they grew up here). Of course these days without a doubt they are indeed English (how can you not be when you have represented the Three Lions at some point), but that was not completely the case when they first got picked.
In the case of John Barnes for example, he mainly grew up in Jamaica and had only spent a couple of years in England (during which time he managed to make it to the Watford first team and made a name for himself in the Football League) before he first got selected for England. In fact Barnes himself has said on the record that he might not have been a British Citizen at the time of his first call up.
Now one might say that since he had spent pretty much his entire teens & footballing education in England, he was more than English enough (despite the fact other factors at play) to play for England at the time he first got picked and you know what I would have nothing against that view.
But then we get to Owen Hargreaves; a guy who while he did indeed have British Parents, was not only born in Canada, spent the first 16 or so years of life growing up in Canada, then spent the next 10 years living in Germany and didn't actually start living in England until he funny enough moved to Manchester United at the age of 26, a good 5 years after he first got picked for England.
In fact when you look at it, Hargreaves stiuation is actually pretty similar to Bailey's at the moment (a guy who lets not forget is actually 4 years younger than the age Hargreaves actually first started living in England).
Now for the record, I hold the view that it was the right decision for The FA to call these two up to play for the Three Lions and in turn both of them should be admired for having the balls to want to play for such a team in the first place. Despite the bigotry that was commmonplace in the English Game at the time of the first Barnes callup alongside the amount of flack Hargreaves got in Canada for the decision he made.
The thing is though; when they where both selected, neither of them could claim to be any more English than Bailey is at the moment (maybe Barnes, but definitely not Hargreaves) and thus if it is perfectly acceptable to pick them to play for England (which it is), then would have been acceptable for Bailey to be picked as well.
good enough yes but would be 3rd choice
On current form I would agree with that. Lets not forget though that Germany would love to have options we currently possess at LB. In fact I would argue that only France has a better set of overall options at LB than we do out of all the European teams.
I think that's a class team. Maybe if not Mount, then Winks or perhaps Rice to add more defensive solidity.
Maybe so against the likes of France & Brazil, but I feel that we should capitalise on the fact we have more options on the attacking side of midfield than the defensive side, hence the preference for 1 DM instead of 2.
The side is much stronger and more exciting than the side that reached the semi's.
When you look at the most commonly suggested lineups on this thread, the only players from that World Cup Squad to make it to that lineup are Pickford, TAA (who hardly played), Maguire, Henderson, Kane & Sterling, of which the former 3 didn't establish themselves into the England team until around the time of the WC.
In fact when you look at the Euro 2016 Squad and compare it to the players that got picked since the 2018 World Cup; only Heaton (Who only just started getting minutes for the Three Lions), Rose (who again only made his debut a few months before), Stones (who made his debut the year before), Walker (Who in contrast first started playing for England as early as 2011), Barkley (who started playing for England in 2013), Alli (Who first got picked the year before), Dier (Same as Alli), Henderson (Who first got picked in 2010), Kane (Same as Dier & Alli) & Sterling (Who first got picked in 2012) are stll getting picked to this day.
Moreso with the 2014 World Cup Squad only Henderson, Oxlade-Chamberlain (who first got picked in 2012), Sterling, Barkley & Shaw (Who had only started to get picked a few months before) are still getting picked to this day.
Thus it its clear to see that over the last 5 (and especially the last 2-3) years, there has been a near complete moving away from both the Golden Generation and from what I like to call the Lost Generation (As represented by the likes of Welbeck, Lennon, Jones & Hart), with only Henderson, Walker and maybe Oxlade-Chamberlain being pretty much the only players of that generation who are still getting callups.
My hope is that we have also moved on from the failures of both generations as well.
"Pickford - Trippier, Keane, Maguire, Rose - Henderson, Rice, Barkley - Sterling, Kane, Rashford" will be the team according to the press
Don't see why Southgate should be playing Rashford on the Wing quite frankly. Regardless surely it would make sense to play the strongest XI against Bulgaria to establish the new defult lineup* first and then play an more experimental lineup (apart from Maddison) against Kosovo** to make the most out of the players he has picked.
*i.e. Pickford - TAA/Gomez/Maguire/Chilwell - Maddison/Winks/Mount - Sancho/Kane/Sterling
**i.e. Heaton - Tripper/Keane/Mings/Rose - Maddison/Rice/Barkley - Sancho/Rashford/Sterling