Manchester Uniteda s Ashley Young was snubbed from the England squad while Harry Kane received his first senior call-up as manager Roy Hodgson picked a 24 man squad for the upcoming games against Italy and Lithuania.
With the fine form that Harry Kane has been, it was no surprise that he was given a call up, and deservedly so. Kane has been scoring for fun for Tottenham this season and pundits and fans alike were unanimous in praise for him.
a His rise has been fantastic since he broke into the Tottenham squad, hea s done so well,a said Hodgson. a It would have been much more of a surprise had he not been selected than him being selected and wea re delighted to welcome him to the fold and try and help him establish himself because hea s like a lot of the players in our squad.
a They are young but some of them have gone on, having been given their chance to really establish themselves and we hope that is going to happen for Harry as well. We do know quite a lot about him, not least of all from his work with the Under-21s. I worked with him myself for a period of two or three days when I took charge of the Under-21 team.a
Uniteda s Ashley Young, however, had to be disappointed after having a decent outing in the recent games, but his position of wing back does not suit England right now and so could not be picked in the squad. Other notable players that were dropped from the team picked in November were Calum Chambers and Jack Wilshere from Arsenal, Rickie Lambert from Liverpool and Saido Berahino from West Brom. Daniel Sturridge, Fabian Delph and Kyle Walker made it to the squad.
With Ben Foster ruled out due to injury, Hodgson only picked only 2 goalkeepers, but said Jack Butland would be regarded as a 3rd keeper.
“We regard Jack Butland as the third keeper,” Hodgson added.
“But our under-21s have a game on Friday so we would prefer him to stay and play in that game.
“He will be our third goalkeeper and will come with us if anything happens to the other two keepers in training or during the first game.”
When asked about his future, Hodgson said, “What I really want to do is to make certain is that I do the job I’m currently contracted to do to the best of my ability and hope there are no slip-ups.”
“I hope when we go to France – and I believe we will qualify – we will give a good account of ourselves. I don’t need to look beyond that at the moment.”
Goalkeepers Fraser Forster (Southampton), Joe Hart (Manchester City)
Defenders Leighton Baines (Everton), Gary Cahill (Chelsea), Nathaniel Clyne (Southampton), Kieran Gibbs (Arsenal), Phil Jagielka (Everton), Phil Jones (Manchester United), Luke Shaw (Manchester United), Chris Smalling (Manchester United), Kyle Walker (Tottenham Hotspur)
Midfielders Ross Barkley (Everton), Michael Carrick (Manchester United), Fabian Delph (Aston Villa), Jordan Henderson (Liverpool), Adam Lallana (Liverpool), James Milner (Manchester City), Raheem Sterling (Liverpool), Andros Townsend (Tottenham Hotspur), Theo Walcott (Arsenal)
Forwards Harry Kane (Tottenham Hotspur), Wayne Rooney (Manchester United), Daniel Sturridge (Liverpool), Danny Welbeck (Arsenal)