Your idea seems good but he had to name his final squad yesterday so there would be no point any of the players not in final squad bothering their arse in the friendlies
I'd feel pretty shitty as a manager calling players up to a friendly just before the World Cup when there was no way they would be going even if they had the games of their lives.
In which case I would have (if I was in Southgates position) either played both friendlies before the deadline or "persuade" FIFA to slightly pospone the deadline or if worst comes to worst put those all those 7 players on the standby list (if not listed already) and thus if I wanted to replace Henderson with Shelvey one could change the squad (though the backdoor) under those circumstances.
Simply because under those cirmcunstances (1) I would rather resort to that than pick 7 players for no good reason whatsoever (In other words I agree with you on the last point of your post).
Notes
(1) Especially when the team in its current form had hardly played together up to this point.
I'd argue there's merit to finalising the squad early. Everyone knows where they stand, and there's no distractions about who will and won't make the cut.
I would normally agree with you on this, except the fact (unlike in the so called "Golden Generation" era) (1) that when it comes to the CM and CB positions (2) it is far from clear who stands out among the current lot in these positions. I mean sure you can pick a Alli-Dier-Lingard midfield 3 and a Walker-Maguire-Stones back 3, but with it comes to the second sets of both there are several players who are good enough (or rather the best of a bad bunch) who could be selected.
Hence why I wanted to use those friendlies to try a broad range of players out in these positions rather than doing Southgate has done and pick certain players over others (despite some of the latter being better than those he has selected) for no good reason at all.
Don't know why you think Leon Bailey, who to my knowledge has never even lived in England, would want to play for England (is he even actually eligible, or is this Ryan Giggs all over again?).
Let me tell you why I feel that Leon Bailey is eligable to play for England:
1: Both his (Adoptive) Grandparents have British Citizenship, likewise (asumming they are all born in either Jamaica or another part of the British West Indies) one could make the case that since they where born on British sovereign territory, Leon Bailey would be able to play for one of the 4 Home Nations though the Grandfather rule. Or at least enough of a case so that FIFA can support such a decision.
2: There is little or no propect of him playing playing for the Jamaican Senior Team due to the bad blood between his Stepdad and the JFF, which also is why he has only played once for any one of the Jamaican Youth Teams.
3: We have already been before in this area with John Barnes, a guy from Jamaica who did not come to this country because he was 12. Yet despite that he ended up getting selected for England for 79 times during this footballing career.
So under the circumstances, why not capitalise on this siutation and select him for England?
Notes
(1) When we had Rio, Terry and Campbell as our CBs and Lampard, Gerrard, Scholes, Carrick, Hargreaves and even Cole as our CBs (even if they were never used properly at an international level). Is such a shame we are unable to go back in time (when they where all at their peak) and simply select them for the current England squad, what a team it would be if Southgate used them all properly...
(2) In contrast, I have no real complants about the Goalkeepers, Fullbacks and Attacking players selected for this squad. Apart from the selection of Wellbeck and the failure to select Bailey of course.
I think it'll be:
---------------------Pickford
---------------Walker--Stones--Maguire
-----------------------Dier
--Trippier-------Alli------Lingard----------Rose
-------------Sterling----Kane
Apart from perhaps swapping Pickford with Pope and Rose with Young (If we are foollish enough not to select Bailey, who is very good as a LWB), this is pretty much the best England lineup we can assemble under the circumstances.