Former England international Martin Keown has urged Three Lions boss Gareth Southgate to break a big rule of his for Liverpool defender Joe Gomez.
The England boss is currently attempting to figure out who his best central defensive partnership should be, and Keown feels the Reds ace has to be included.
“Yet Southgate will have left Kosovo asking himself questions,” he wrote in his Daily Mail column. “Who starts at the back alongside Harry Maguire? I’d go with Joe Gomez.
“Southgate likes to pick players who play regularly for their clubs. Gomez has not been starting as much as he would like for Liverpool, but I’d break that rule for him.
Tyrone Mings, who has come a long way in a short space of time, encountered a couple of tricky moments on Sunday night. He sat very deep and did not always deal with Kosovo’s balls into the box. John Stones seems devoid of confidence, too. So that is an area for Southgate to look at. At least his full backs pick themselves.”
OPINION
Keown is right that the centre of the defence is a bit of a problem position for Southgate at the moment. As he says, the full back slots should be sorted. Trent Alexander-Arnold and Ben Chilwell have seemingly done enough to nail down those two positions. But, the question of who should partner Maguire is a big one now for the England boss. Gomez is a very talented player, probably more so than Mings and Stones in terms of his all-round game, but he’s not being getting in the Liverpool team of late. It certainly seems, now, that the 22-year-old is fourth choice at Anfield behind Virgil van Dijk, Dejan Lovren and Joel Matip. If you look at the statistics from this season, they actually suggest that Stones should be the man to partner Maguire. As per WhoScored.com, the City star is averaging more tackles per game that Gomez and Mings, while he commits the fewest fouls and draws the most offsides. Furthermore, the 25-year-old’s average WhoScored rating per outing is the best of the trio’s.
