I would say that the current squad (The Southgate Generation as I like to call it) is the best England have had since the Golden Generation started to decline after 2008. But so long as it continues to have issues in the CB/DM positions*, it would be very hard to surpass them talent-wise on paper, even if they have managed to surpass them in a major tournement.
*One would hope that Tomori, Jonathan Panzo & Hamza Choudhury end up being the solution to those issues.
I want to know what happened to our World Cup winning U17s and U20s. I don't think any of them have made it through?
Dean Henderson (U20s), Tomori (U20s), Jaden Sancho (U17s) & Callum Hudson-Odoi (U17s) have already been called up for the England Senior Team (in fact all of them where called up for the most recent matches) and play regular football in the PL/Bundesliga while Lewis Cook (U20s) (Who also got a few callups before the 2018 WC), Ainsley Maitland-Niles (U20s), Ademola Lookman (U20s), Dominic Calvert-Lewin (U20s), Jonathan Panzo (U17s), Phil Foden (U17s) & Morgan Gibbs-White (U17s) all play on a semi-regular basis (if not better) at a senior level and all likely end up being called up for the England Senior Team at some point.
Which by the way is a better record than the likes of France & Germany for both these tournments, since they have collectively given a grand total of zero senior caps to any player who played for their respective U17/U20 teams in said tournments.
Look at the debacle towards the end of the Nations League.
Which was caused by an obession of certain players to keep passing the ball backwards & sideways at all costs, Southgate refusing to call up Vardy instead of allowing Kane to force himself onto the field (despite being unfit), Stones & Barkley trying their best to kill off their England careers all in one game, Chilwell ending up getting scared of Denzel Dumfries (The Dutch RB), Rice doing the same with the entire Dutch NT & Walker seemingly forgetting that he has 3-4 players all fighting for his place (and playing as such).
Overall, I still mantain that we could have beaten the Dutch that game had we avoided making basic tatical/squad selection mistakes England make far too many times (lets not forget we won against Spain & Croatia to reach the finals in the first place), such as thoughout the entire 2018 WC and of course the recent defeat against the Czech Republic...
And that is a competition no one even takes that seriously.
Well the Dutch & Portguese certainly did...
And we seem to have forgotten our performance at recent Under 21s
Fair point.
Our attack and full-backs are fantastic.
Everything else though....
I would argue that our goalkeepers are better than they were thoughout most of the Golden Generation era (i.e. after Seaman stopped getting picked for the Three Lions).
Kalvin Phillips would be in the squad if Leeds had got promoted, he's exactly what this squad is missing.
Well we do have a set of friendlies coming up in March next year, I don't see the harm in Southgate giving him a chance to both him & Hamza Choudhury in the DM role.
I think Grealish should have definitely got a call up.
Especially when Barkley withdrew from the squad...
Golden generation were better - they just had poor managers.
Neville, Cole, Terry, Rio, Campbell, King, Carrick, Gerrard, Scholes, Lampard, Beckham, Rooney, Shearer, Owen.
Albeit they did suffer from not having a decent LW.
Not helped by the fact Giggs ended chosing Wales over England. Regardless the likes of Sven should have adopted a 3-5-2 formation to get around this problem (and the issue is picking the right midfield lineup) during this time. Especially when England managers such as Hoddle & Taylor were willing to use this formation themselves (as would Southgate before the emergence of Sancho & CHO).