Gary Neville believes England boss Gareth Southgate has made a mistake by overlooking Phil Foden - his squad’s “best talent by a mile”.
Foden has not been selected in England’s starting line-up for each of their opening two World Cup matches. The Manchester City playmaker had to wait until the 70th minute until he was introduced as England demolished Iran 6-2 in their opening match of the tournament.
The 22-year-old replaced Mason Mount in the opening group game, but the Chelsea star was once again preferred from the start in Friday night’s clash against the USA. Furthermore, Foden was not among the first substitutes brought on as England laboured against their opponents – with Jack Grealish and Jordan Henderson the first substitutes to be introduced.
Foden’s exclusion from the England side has been criticised by Neville, who highlighted that Foden was the squad’s most talented player and that he could not understand why he was not being included in Southgate’ side.
“I know Phil Foden isn’t playing but for Phil Foden not to be playing for England is a real shame because he’s a massive talent,” Neville said at the half-time break on ITV Sport. “I think he’s our best player, our best talent by a mile. He should be playing in that team.”
Neville’s fellow pundit Ian Wright added of what was going wrong for England in their clash against the USA, in which they lacked creativity: “Sometimes Mason Mount is getting over too quickly, leaving that space for Tyler Adams then they get out. Bukayo Saka going in leaving Antonee Robinson to go forward, we have to get it right.”
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Neville added: “We had far too many passes at the back, didn’t get to midfield. Their midfield three have made ours looks sluggish, we spoke about (Jude) Bellingham before the game, Mount, they put a group of passes together and if you look at (Harry) Maguire on this (Weston McKennie chance), he’s really poor on this one, you’ve got to get that near post.
“Watch Maguire, he goes and marks which you can’t do that, you can’t do that. They was brighter, sharper, everything we were doing we wasn’t getting anything right. We know what a talent (Christian) Pulisic is, (Jordan) Pickford is beaten here, it’s massive wakeup call that first-half, they did that the other night and they did weaken so England will be hoping that happens here as well.”
After a free-flowing opening day victory over Iran in which they scored six goals, England’s performance against the USA stood in sharp contrast with a lack of fluency and the absence of any attacking threat throughout.
