Gareth Southgate has been told he should have picked Jadon Sancho instead of Raheem Sterling for England's next two games.
Manchester City star Sterling is in the Three Lions squad facing friendlies with Switzerland and Ivory Coast. But Manchester United winger Sancho again misses out after his latest snub by England boss Southgate. And former Arsenal and England forward Paul Merson reckons Southgate is making a big mistake not rewarding Sancho for his recent revival at Old Trafford.
Merson wrote in his Daily Star column: "Gareth Southgate should have picked Jadon Sancho instead of Raheem Sterling in his England squad. Surely you're better off having Sancho in the squad than Sterling. We know what Sterling can do. We know he's going to the World Cup.
"Sterling always performs for England. Leave him out, he's got big games coming up for Manchester City. And put Sancho in. I think Sancho is playing better than ever at Manchester United. He's playing a lot better than he was when he got in the England squad before.
"I can't work out why he's not in it this time. Southgate is giving out mixed messages otherwise. When Sancho got called up against Andorra, I don't personally think he deserved it because he wasn't playing well enough.
"But he's turned the corner now and looks a different player. Shouldn't he be rewarded? I was very surprised he wasn't in it this time. I think he's started doing the simple things properly, and that's helped. But it's hard for him because the expectations were so high."
Merson reckons people expected too much of Sancho after his blockbuster £73m move to United - and fears he could miss out on going to the World Cup. He wrote: "If we hadn't seen him scoring all those goals for Borussia Dortmund we would be saying he's playing really well right now.
"He gets down the wing, commits two players because they double up, and he releases the ball. For me that's good wing play. But because we've seen all these clips of him at Dortmund beating players and scoring goals, we expect that from him over here now too.
"Sancho has been slaughtered by social media really because people are disappointed - they think he's going to beat three players all the time and score 20 goals. But I think he's played with real maturity and confidence with the way he's played in the last few weeks.
"When he plays in a better team with better players at United I think this kid will be a massive hit, I really do. He should have been in the squad but he's running out of time to get in there now because the World Cup will soon come around. If he keeps on doing what he's doing, I'd like to see him in the squad for Qatar."
