England manager Gareth Southgate assured Tammy Abraham and Fikayo Tomori ‘have good potential’ and can challenge to be at the 2022 World Cup.
While Roma striker Abraham has been involved in the last two spells of international duty, Milan defender Tomori is still being ignored by the Three Lions manager.
Following the 10-0 World Cup qualifier against San Marino last night, Southgate was asked about the odds of seeing Abraham and Tomori in the side for that tournament next year.
“We like both players,” said the manager in his press conference.
“We think Tammy is challenging strongly to be in the squad. Over the last month he’s had mixed performances and the last game he played with Roma was a good one, an assist for the goal and won a penalty, scored himself, I thought his pressing was good and he showed a hunger.
“He’s just got to keep developing and will do in a league where it’s difficult to get chances and you’ve got to really work to earn the space and opportunity to score.”
Despite being joint top of the Serie A table with Napoli, Milan defender Tomori is still not called up for his country.
“Fikayo we really like, he’s playing really well. We think he’s one of three or four young centre-backs we’ve got who can challenge the four who’ve been with us,” continued Southgate.
“We kept continuity with the guys we had over the summer, but over the next 12 months there are younger players we’ve got to look at closely, give opportunities to and can challenge for places.
“So both players have good potential.”
I just think Tammy and Fikayo can give his England squad something a lot of the current crop of England players can’t. Most of the players are used to playing a physical game, high intensity and very attack minded football but not every team you come up against at international level is like that so the diversity can only improve the strength in depth of the team.