Reece James appears to have made his unhappiness with Gareth Southgate's World Cup squad selection clear to see.
The Chelsea defender has been left at home by Southgate for the tournament in Qatar due to concerns over his fitness. James had hoped that he would be fit enough to at least feature in the knockout stages, but Southgate was unwilling to take that chance.
Instead, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Kyle Walker and Kieran Trippier will battle it out for the right-back spot in England's starting line-up. James' social media activity would appear to suggest that he remains unhappy with Southgate's decision though.
On Saturday he liked a tweet quoting Paul Merson's column in the Daily Star, in which he slammed Southgate for omitting James. The tweet was posted by a Chelsea fan account.
"Paul Merson: "I just find it weird that Gareth Southgate is willing to gamble on Kalvin Phillips and Kyle Walker, but not Reece James? If it was Harry Kane, he would be going - what's the difference?" the tweet read.
"If it was Harry Kane, they would say, 'right we'll take him and use him after the group stages'. We need to take one of our best players. I just don't understand it. Reece James is as important as Harry Kane."
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James also suggested he was unhappy with Southgate's decision to leave Ivan Toney out of his squad. Kane, Marcus Rashford and Callum Wilson will be England's options up-front in Qatar.
And Toney delivered the perfect response to his omission by scoring twice to help Brentford defeat Manchester City on Saturday. The Bees star then posted a photo of himself celebrating on Instagram, with James replying "If I speak I'm in big trouble" along with the laughing emoji.
James was quoting an infamous interview given by Jose Mourinho, who said the phrase as he made his unhappiness with a referee's decision clear. In the context that James has used it, the Chelsea star would appear to be criticising Southgate's decision to leave Toney at home.
Southgate defended his decision to leave out James by insisting that he believed it would be "arrogant" to take a player who would not feature until the knockout rounds. The England boss did admit though that it had been a tough call to make.
"We had to make a very difficult call with Reece, who is a fantastic player. He was not going to be available – if everything went perfectly – until the latter stages of the tournament and there were too many unknowns for us on that road to recovery," Southgate said.
"Also, I do not think we can take a player who is not available for the group stage, that would be deemed arrogant in some circles. But if everything went well and he was available, we would be dropping him into a quarter-final after eight weeks out. That would be really demanding. So it was a tough call."
