England opportunity knocks for DCL, TAA, MGW, MLS and even players without double-barrelled names

The first international window after a major tournament is always, by inevitability, a time of change.

It’s the start of a new cycle. Some players will have retired. Some will now be moved on from, before being recalled again in March because they are Great To Have Around The Group but are for now considered in effective retirement.

And, because it’s a very busy season and this is the furthest point from another major tournament squad, a lot of players will simply not be that arsed to turn up, thanks all the same.

To the surprise of literally nobody, the England squad has been hit by a veritable raft of niggles and minor injury setbacks and a curious number of loads that are in sudden and urgent need of management.

But when one door closes another one opens, and a new tournament cycle and an already much-changed squad now riddled with further changes via withdrawals and call-ups, means opportunity knocks for several members of this squad. Below are quite literally some of those players.

Dominic Calvert-Lewin
There’s no clearer indication of just how pre-eminent Harry Kane has been as England’s first-choice striker and for just how long that we’re still sat here talking about a now 29-year-old Dominic Calvert-Lewin as the man with the chance to establish himself as the clear go-to back-up/replacement.

There is a whole lost generation of England strikers here, crushed beneath Kane’s relentless goal-hungry excellence. The good news is that most of them were quite cack anyway. It’s not like England have lost a possible great goalscorer in service to their actual great goalscorer. There is no Stuart MacGill to Kane’s Shane Warne here.

But with Ollie Watkins now off in semi-retirement, Dominic Solanke now sadly so Spurs-brained that he’s posting accidentally on-brand AI slop where he’s sharpening the shaft of an arrow while wearing a kit that predates his move to north London, and Liam Delap still paying his dues for the Chelsea unpleasantness, the in-form DCL is the man suddenly very much in possession and sure, you’d imagine, to get plenty of chances in a long window where Kane is unlikely to play absolutely all of the football even though he’ll definitely want to in his ongoing and deeply selfish bid to score even more goals that don’t count.

Alex Scott
No Declan Rice. No Kobbie Mainoo. No Adam Wharton. And surely now for real this time no more Jordan Henderson pointing at things or jumping over things with the disastrous consequence of no longer being able to point at things.

There’s Elliot Anderson, obviously, but the only other full-time specialist central midfielders in this squad are the uncapped Scott and late call-up James Garner. Beyond that, England’s options are shuffling Jude Bellingham into a deeper position, or deploying any one of the great many full-back/midfielder hybrid players they have at their disposal in this camp. Your Nico O’Reillys. Your Myles Lewis-Skellys. The Trent Alexander-Arnolds of this world.

There’s certainly a decent chance we see at least the latter pair in midfield at some point over the next fortnight, but there has to be a huge chance here for Scott the specialist to get his name down as at worst first reserve to the established Rice/Anderson axis.

Trent Alexander-Arnold
We can go back and forth forever about who takes the burden of responsibility for the fact a footballer of Alexander-Arnold’s exceptional talents has, at 27, made only 34 largely underwhelming appearances for his country.

Gareth Southgate never really trusted him as a defender, ultimately deciding to shoehorn him into his final tournament squad as a starting midfielder.

Lee Carsley used him as a right-back for most of his interim reign, and Thomas Tuchel… has trusted him even less than Southgate.

The last 26 minutes of a 1-0 World Cup qualifying win in Andorra 15 months ago remains for now the first, last and only involvement for Alexander-Arnold during the Tuchel era. He was an unused sub for the infamous Senegal defeat at the City Ground a few days later, and hasn’t been seen at all since.

But now he’s back, and suddenly finds himself as the only specialist right-back in the England squad. Given that England squads traditionally carry at least four players whose preferred starting position is right-back, that’s quite something.

This has to be a huge opportunity for the Real Madrid man, despite the presence within a Spence-less, Livramento-free squad of plenty of players who can inevitably Do A Job at right-back.

Interestingly, though, the official England site has Alexander-Arnold listed among the midfielders. Which if nothing else tells us Tuchel didn’t in fact remove and destroy his What Would Gareth Do? bracelet with fire after the Argentina Incident.

Morgan Gibbs-White
Should obviously have been in the squad from the start because a) he’s a brilliant player playing brilliantly and b) it would have spared all of us the ‘having to leave his holiday in Dubai’ content.

But Cole Palmer huffing off to manage his load in a season where Chelsea have literally no load to manage – at least Declan Rice had the basic decency to play millions of football matches to the point of obvious exhaustion and have millions more ahead of him this season before he decided the ol’ load needed some managing – has given MGW the chance to show what he can do.

All he needs to do now is shove Jude Bellingham, Morgan Rogers and Ebere Eze out of the way. Perhaps via the medium of some form of contest that provides hero content for the socials.

Myles Lewis-Skelly
The transition from left-back-who-can-play-in-midfield to midfielder-who-can-play-left-back appears to be now complete now for a player who has completed the precocious trick of playing for his country, spending some time in the international wilderness, and returning to the international set-up all while still a teenager. Only just, because he turns 20 on Saturday, but impressive nonetheless.

All his Premier League minutes this season have come in midfield, while he was pressed into service at left-back in a much-changed side for the Carabao against Ipswich. Which is pretty much the ideal demonstration of the parameters he now operates within.

It’s vital and in everyone’s interests – his, Arsenal’s, England’s – that Lewis-Skelly at least keep his hand in with the occasional bit of left-backery. When it comes to tournament squad composition time, a proper on-his-own-merits midfielder who can also do a very reliable job at the most notoriously awkward position for squad quotas is worth plenty.

And the absence from this squad of club team-mate Rice clearly creates an opportunity. Lewis-Skelly isn’t the only one looking to benefit, but it seems certain that at some point over the next fortnight he’ll get a first chance in England’s midfield having won all six of his previous caps at left-back.

Anthony Gordon
Very firmly established in the squad, of course, and locked in a literal running battle with Marcus Rashford for the starting berth on the left side of attack.

While others here can see this bunch of England games as the chance to get themselves a squad place, Gordon has the chance to do something more. He could really make the leap to fully-fledged senior player here, inking his name in on the left as one of England’s clear starters.

The conditions are all there. First and most obviously, Gordon is currently living his absolute best life having swapped Newcastle for Barcelona where he now fills his days speaking impressively fluent Spanish and just endlessly setting up goal after goal for Raphinha and Lamine Yamal.

There are literally several worse ways to make a living.

So he comes into this squad in the form of his life, confidence out the wazoo, and there isn’t even a Rashford there to compete with him after his pre-lull injury setback against Fulham.

Everything’s coming up Gordon.