If there’s one thing that Gareth Southgate has done for the England set up since taking over as national team manager, it’s restore a sense of pride and help ensure that the Three Lions are once again being considered as an elite national side.
They may still be without a major trophy since the 1966 World Cup win, but they are getting closer and closer under Southgate’s stewardship.
His recent words about the lack of English players that are playing at the elite level should strike a chord with clubs up and down the country too.
As we’ve seen with a number of new caps, for perhaps the first time, here is an England manager who genuinely is picking on form rather than reputation. Brentford’s Ivan Toney might be the best recent example of that.
However, when the talent pool begins to run dry or someone with different ideas to Southgate takes over the national side, what then?
“The numbers are the numbers. They’re not going up,” he was quoted as saying on BBC Sport.
“It has been around 32% but that’s down from 35% when I took over and 38% in the years before so the graph is clear – there’s no argument about that.
“If you look at Champions League minutes this year we are sixth on that list – we’re actually behind Brazil and Portugal,” he said.
“If breaking into the team is the foundation, the Champions League and the upper echelons of the Premier League are the finishing school.”
While things are going swimmingly for England, and there’s certainly been year on year improvements under Southgate, that nettle needs to keep being grasped. Not afterwards when things could be back on the way down.
The Premier League, all of its member clubs and the FA need to work together to ensure that the ratio of English players at the very top level doesn’t dip any further than it has already.