James Maddison: England manager Gareth Southgate cannot guarantee midfielder game time
Friday 4 October 2019 11:30, UK
England manager Gareth Southgate says he cannot "guarantee people football" when asked if Leicester midfielder James Maddison will earn his first cap.
Maddison has been an unused substitute four times in two different England squads but is yet to receive his first senior cap.
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The 22-year-old has scored eight goals and registered nine assists in his 42 Premier League appearances for Leicester, and Southgate has selected him for the latest squad who will play Czech Republic and Bulgaria in European Qualifiers.
England's 25-man outfit contains just 11 players from the 2018 World Cup squad after Dele Alli, Jesse Lingard and Kyle Walker missed out, with Southgate insisting Maddison has achieved greatly to be in the youthful squad.
When asked if he has explained to Maddison why he has not featured yet, Southgate replied: "I can't guarantee people football.
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"He only has to see the players that have been left out to recognise just to get in the squad is an achievement, and I don't handle him any differently to any of the others, really.
"He wants to talk football which is great. He wants to know what areas of his game that we like and that we think he can improve.
"He seems to take all of that on board really well, so he's playing very well, but so is [Mason] Mount, so is [Jadon] Sancho and so are all of the others - that's the conundrum."
The England manager has shown faith in the nation's youngsters with Sancho, Mount, Declan Rice and Trent Alexander-Arnold all getting game time during the last Euro 2020 qualifiers, and Southgate has called up Chelsea pair Tammy Abraham and Fikayo Tomori for October's fixtures.
Southgate believes in the players he chooses and admits it is down to their performances on the pitch as to who gets selected to play.
He said: "It's a strange job because we won two games last time, we scored nine goals, and I was asked about creative players who didn't get on the pitch but we've got really good competition.
"The players have to understand that, I can't promise and I can't say that you'll definitely play.
"There are times we're in camps where I might say to the players, "you're not playing tonight, I'm starting you on Tuesday", but I've never promised things ahead of a camp.
"I just don't know how they might perform, they might perform poorly in training games and you start thinking, "I'm not putting you in".
"So, the competition is there. We're giving them the opportunity to come and impress and it's up to them; they select the team, really.
"Managers don't, players do by the way that they play and the way that they behave and train."
The Three Lions travel to Prague to play the Czech Republic on October 11, before an away fixture against Bulgaria three days later.
