DARLINGTON, ENGLAND – JUNE 02: Trent Alexander-Arnold, Cole Palmer, Ezri Konsa, Declan Rice, Curtis … [+]
England head coach Gareth Southgate has named his 26-man squad for the UEFA 2024 European Championship.
Most of the headlines were about who didn’t make the plane to Germany, with Manchester City’s Jack Grealish and Tottenham Hotspur’s James Maddison both missing out.
But Southgate’s squad has a slightly different make up from his previous England selections.
Just twelve players are from the Premier League’s so-called “Big Six.”
Southgate picked three Arsenal players, three Manchester City players, and two players each from Liverpool, Manchester United and Chelsea. No Tottenham Hotspur players made the cut.
Bayern Munich’s Harry Kane and Real Madrid’s Jude Bellingham also made the squad, but the rest of the squad were from the other 14 Premier League clubs outside the “Big Six.”
In fact, the team with the most players selected was Southgate’s former club side Crystal Palace, who have Dean Henderson, Marc Guehi, Adam Wharton and Eberechi Eze in the final 26.
This squad has the fewest players from “Big Six” sides of any of Southgate’s tournament squads. For the Russia 2018 World Cup, he selected 17 players from the “Big Six,” followed by 14 players in his original squad for EURO 2020, and 18 players for Qatar 2022.
The prevalence of players from the rest of the Premier League in England’s 2024 squad may be partly due to the success of Aston Villa this season and Newcastle United last season. Both have two players selected.
Meanwhile, both Chelsea and Manchester United underperformed this season, and Tottenham Hotspur had a poor second half of the season.
It should be pointed out though that most of the players who were cut from the 33-man preliminary squad were from the “Big Six,” including Manchester United defender Harry Maguire, who would have almost certainly made the trip to Germany if he wasn’t injured.
The England squad selected for Germany 2024 also shows the importance of England’s soccer pyramid, with 19 of the 26 players having played in the English Football League (either the Championship, League One or League Two) at some point in their careers.
Some of those players did so on loan from Premier League clubs, but thirteen of the squad started their careers at teams outside the Premier League. Aston Villa’s Ollie Watkins and Brentford’s Ivan Toney actually started their careers in League Two, English soccer’s fourth tier, at Exeter City and Northampton Town, respectively. Jarrod Bowen’s first senior club was then-fifth-tier side Hereford United.
Six players in the team have actually played more times in the EFL than in the Premier League.
Those include Watkins, who has 200 EFL appearances, and Crystal Palace’s breakout star Adam Wharton, who has only played 1,305 minutes in the Premier League. Wharton earned his first England cap against Bosnia and Herzegovina this week and could be the missing piece to provide balance in England’s midfield in the coming years.
Twelve players in the England squad have ten or fewer caps, suggesting Southgate is starting to bring the next generation of players into what has been a relatively settled side during his tenure so far.
While many of the 12 Premier League players outside the “Big Six” will likely get poached by those clubs in the coming years, Southgate’s squad shows that the importance of the soccer pyramid in developing England’s national team is undeniable.
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