Gareth Southgate defends England under-21s selection
Friday 26 June 2015 11:56, UK
Gareth Southgate has defended his decision to stand by the England Under-21 players who qualified for the European Championship in the tournament finals.
Southgate’s side breezed through qualification, winning nine of their 10 games and scoring 31 times to book their place at the tournament in the Czech Republic.
Once there, the coach stuck with the same group who had performed to such a high standard in that qualifying campaign, meaning there was no place for established Premier League stars such as Raheem Sterling, Jack Wilshere, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Ross Barkley.
While Southgate admits that policy may be reviewed in the wake of the team’s poor performance – they went out of the group stages following a 3-1 defeat to Italy on Wednesday night – he felt it was the right decision to retain faith in the players who had secured the team’s qualification.
"It's absolutely a fair question and something we'll have to look at again as a group of national coaches," he said.
"I still think with Wilshere, (Phil) Jones, Oxlade-Chamberlain that was the right decision because they've never kicked a ball with this group. They've had senior tournament experience.
"The only player in this tournament that goes against that debate is (William) Carvalho (of Portugal). Everybody else has gone the route we have.
"We brought five back from the seniors. Unfortunately we lost three of them, Luke (Shaw), Saido (Berahino) and (John) Stones for the first two games. If we'd had them, the policy of bringing players in from the seniors would have been more profitable perhaps."
Barkley has been identified as one of the senior internationals whose selection would have benefited the team and the individual.
Since late last year, however, Everton manager Roberto Martinez has said the Football Association should not select the midfielder, who instead has been enjoying a holiday.
"Ross is one we've got to think about," Southgate said. "I still think it's not clear because he hadn't kicked a ball with me for 20 months, so to bring him into the group isn't something that would necessarily have worked.
"Carvalho had played in qualifiers for Portugal, that's why he came back into the group.
"For (Barkley's) development, would it have been something good for his experience? An under-21 finals is a high-quality field.
"The policy generally is something I'm comfortable with because we expose this next group now.
"Would we have seen a glimpse of Ruben (Loftus-Cheek) if we'd done that? Possibly not. Jesse (Lingard) has come through as a player that if he gets a pathway with a club, he's shown on a top stage what he might be able to do.
"And had we had Saido, (Harry) Kane and (Danny) Ings as 9 and 10, would we be talking about Ross in the same way?
"It's absolutely a fair question and one we have to constantly review. We did it with Ruben – is it right to move him up?"
