Harry Kane’s decision to blast England’s dropouts for putting club before country has caused quite a stir.
Nine players have withdrawn from Lee Carsley’s squad for the Nations League clashes with Greece and Ireland, and while Kane warned that dropping out would have been a risky move for their future in England under Gareth Southgate, player representatives have told Mail Sport that their reasons for it is real.
With all this in mind, our own debate on JAMES SHARPE AND LEWIS STEELE: Was it right of Kane to address the dropouts?
Harry Kane’s warning to England stars who have withdrawn from the squad has caused a stir
James Sharpe – why Kane was RIGHT to call out his teammates
Harry Kane is right. When it comes to football, no matter what your agent or accountant tells you, the ultimate price is land over club.
After all, there’s a reason Lionel Messi can win every trophy football has to offer, but until he finally held the Jules Rimet in his hands, the little genius couldn’t rest his magical feet.
Twenty-two Englishmen have won the World Cup. Meanwhile, 141 of them have played in a team that went on to win the Premier League, including Jack Rodwell and Nathan Dyer.
This is not the World Cup. It’s the Nations League. Park friendlies with a shiny little trophy at the end and, admittedly, at the start of a jam-packed Christmas period are being rebranded on a calendar that professionals are already complaining is dangerously close to bursting.
Look, Declan Rice can’t play with a broken toe. Aaron Ramsdale has a broken finger. Trent Alexander-Arnold limped off this weekend after less than half an hour with a hamstring injury. They are injured.
International football still trumps club play, writes James Sharpe – Lionel Messi’s legacy secured by his World Cup victory
Of course you can’t blame stars like Arsenal man Declan Rice, who has a broken toe
But of the nine England call-ups that dropped out, five played the 90 minutes this weekend.
So you can’t see it other than as a worrying throwback to the cliquey old days of ‘Big Club’ players shrugging off England duty because they had more important things to do, like calling in sick to your boss with a fake evil. vote because you have a start time at noon.
And then we all wondered why, when the big tournaments came around, those great club players fell short when it mattered.
That’s why it’s important now, because in two years it will still matter when it comes to the World Cup. And it will matter to the nation then if they don’t see those in white giving everything to end those years of pain.
Whatever you thought of Gareth Southgate’s tactics, he made players want to play for England again. And that brought them closer to winning something than many before him.
With new man Thomas Tuchel out until January, it won’t be long before he falls back into old habits.
Even if you don’t agree with Kane, at least he took a stand. At least he has a strong belief in it and has the courage to speak out about it, regardless of the feathers he might ruffle.
This isn’t Strictly Come Dancing. You don’t have to come out on Saturday night in your sparkly bathing suit and pretend to the world that everything is glitter and sparkle when you’ve been fighting with your partner all week.
Gareth Southgate made players want to play for England, whatever you made of his tactics
How refreshing to hear a footballer, an England captain, at least say something.
We should all rather listen to Kane address the dropouts than absorb the anodyne banalities that Lee Carsley dishes out on the subject.
“The focus of the whole camp has been on the players that are here,” he said. “That’s Harry’s opinion, I can only deal with what’s in front of us.”
Do us a favor. Tell us how you really feel. Because, as Harry knows, this stuff matters.
Lewis Steele – why it’s WRONG for Kane to criticize them
I view international football the same way many sports fans view tennis, golf or athletics.
Unless it’s the big tournaments, I find it hard to care. I’d like to say I tune into random events at the ATP Tour or Diamond League meetings, but realistically it doesn’t pique my interest if it’s not a Grand Slam or the Olympics.
And that also applies to football. I love the World Cup and the European Championship – even the Copa America – as much as anything. The feeling of putting up your wall map and reading the team-by-team guides to the niche countries still gets me excited like a kid at Christmas.
However, Nations League or qualifiers are not enough for me, at least nine times out of ten. Boring. In my adult life, England have always come through the qualifying campaigns so they are in little danger. I turn on the TV in the background, but they are still far from meeting.
Most young people don’t really care unless it’s a big tournament, writes Lewis Steele
The majority of players will put their club first, apart from fanatics like Jordan Pickford
Maybe it’s because I work in football, often reaching double figures for matches attended per month, plus press conferences every other day and writing an average of 10,000 words per week with rarely a day off. So for me the international breakthrough is what it says on the tin: a breakthrough.
I suspect that if England weren’t on terrestrial television, the ratings would reflect this too. None of my friends are keen to get together to watch the Three Lions in a qualifier, but when the tournaments happen we book pubs and plan barbecues months in advance.
The point is that while many still enjoy looking at their country all year round, I think the popular opinion of young adults is similar to mine. And this is crucial because I am the same age as the majority of the England squad, although some, like Kobbie Mainoo, are unashamedly younger.
Putting on the England shirt no longer seems to have the same meaning as it used to. That’s why most players, unlike Harry Kane, put their club first.
There are exceptions, such as Jordan Pickford who loves being England’s No. 1, but many would rather win the Premier League.
Trent Alexander-Arnold, one of the dropouts, recently said his ultimate goal was not to win the World Cup, but the Ballon d’Or.
Most of the players who have withdrawn have valid reasons to – Trent Alexander-Arnold has been given injections just to play
Harry Kane should turn his neck and not judge his teammates – he’s not a doctor after all!
However, of the nine players who have left camp, most of them are actually injured, so Kane doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on when he called them out.
Declan Rice played with a nasty toe injury, while Alexander-Arnold received injections before matches and battled pain after a side injury suffered in Finland during the last international camp.
Jack Grealish has not featured for Manchester City for weeks, while former City star Cole Palmer joins Bukayo Saka on a list of players certain to have been sent back by their club managers due to crunch clashes.
Kane is not a doctor, so he has to stick his neck out when criticizing his teammates, who will now have a bad reputation.