England suffered their worst home defeat since 1928 on Tuesday night as they were beaten 4-0. There are a lot of factors at play, but most of the scrutiny has fallen on the head of manager Gareth Southgate.
An international manager's job is a double-edged sword and Southgate is learning that the hard way. He is the most successful England manager since Alf Ramsey, reaching a World Cup semi-final and a European Championship final with a talented squad but after a disappointing round of fixtures, doubts are beginning to circle within the fanbase about whether he should even be in charge for the World Cup in November.
A change of management is of course, unlikely to happen, especially with only a handful of games and limited training time ahead of the 2022 World Cup, but what can change is the personnel. Southgate gave a number of new players the chance to prove themselves over this international break, however other than Marc Guehi, no one truly staked their claim to be starting in the long term.
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This bodes well for Manchester United players Luke Shaw, Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho. All three had been absent from this England squad for different reasons but under new boss Erik ten Hag they will hoping to force their way back into the mix ahead of Qatar 2022.
Shaw is the most likely to be on the plane; he had been absent for this round of international fixtures due to injury. Southgate's makeshift solutions at left back included Kieran Trippier and Reece James (both naturally right backs) in that role, as well as James Justin, but none of them really impressed.
Shaw is England's best left-back and has shown it on many occasions, most notably in the Euro 2020 final where he scored the opener against Italy. After a disappointing club season, he will hope to kick on again under Ten Hag.
Rashford and Sancho however, have a lot more work to do to make it back into the national squad. Although United were a mess this season as a whole, Rashford's form, in particular, was worrying. The 24-year-old forward looked completely off the pace and was ineffective for large parts of the season after he returned from surgery on a longstanding shoulder injury.
Sancho has less of a step to make, but with England boasting a talented attacking line that includes Harry Kane, Phil Foden, Raheem Sterling and Bukayo Saka, he still needs to hit the ground running in the new season. But both wingers will be thankful that the likes of Jarrod Bowen were unable to truly take their chance.
Ten Hag's system relies heavily on his wingers, so unless United invest in the transfer market, the Dutchman will be looking to get the best out of Rashford and Sancho. Though it will be a race against time given that there will only be a few months of games before the World Cup in November.
Many United fans hope that Ten Hag will be able to revitalise Rashford and finally allow Sancho to show his talent and who knows, the club's gain could also be England's as Southgate will be hoping to go one step further than just reaching the final this time around.
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