The Southgate five do not include the most expensive English right-back of all time. Gareth Southgate famously finds it hard to accommodate Trent Alexander-Arnold but at least he picked him in his Nations League squad, in a quintet of right-backs along with Kyle Walker, Kieran Trippier, Reece James and James Justin. Four of them were in his original Euro 2020 squad before the Liverpool playmaker withdrew. England can look lopsided due to the luxury of options.
If that makes everyone else at best sixth choice, the chances are that Aaron Wan-Bissaka is far from that, and not merely because Kyle Walker-Peters was called up in March. England had so few fine right-backs that Glen Johnson was the lone specialist in successive World Cup squads. Now they have so many that Matty Cash has become “the Polish Cafu” in more than just nickname. Tariq Lamptey has agreed to become the Ghanaian Cafu. The precocious, but sadly sidelined, Tino Livramento has Scottish and Portuguese heritage and, if the queue for places in the England team might alert others, he should be aware that the player branded “the Scottish Cafu” was, implausibly, Alan Hutton.
