Gareth Southgate: Jack Grealish must play in the Premier League if he wants an England cap

Jack Grealish made the switch from Republic of Ireland to England in 2015 but has yet to get a senior cap - Jack Grealish made the switch from Republic of Ireland to England in 2015 but has yet to get a senior cap
Jack Grealish made the switch from Republic of Ireland to England in 2015 but has yet to get a senior cap Credit: Getty Images

The England manager Gareth Southgate has spelled out the challenge now facing Jack Grealish if the rejuvenated Aston Villa playmaker wants to make his England senior debut: he needs to be playing in the Premier League.

Grealish, 23, made the switch from Republic of Ireland to England in 2015 and represented the England Under-21s for whom he is no longer age-eligible. He is yet to make his senior debut and has seen others overtake him, including another former Ireland international, Declan Rice, 20, who made his senior debut in the 5-0 win over the Czech Republic in the Euro 2002 qualifier at Wembley on Friday night.  

In that game Southgate also gave a debut from the bench to Callum Hudson-Odoi and his fellow 18-year-old Jadon Sancho made his first competitive start. It was the first time in 138 years that an England team featured two 18-year-olds and further evidence of Southgate’s willingness to look beyond club form. Hudson-Odoi is still yet to start a Premier League game for his club Chelsea.  England take on Montenegro in Podgorica tomorrow (Monday) night. 

Although Southgate admitted that he had to “creative” in selecting players from an ever more shallow pool of English talent in the Premier League he said that Grealish would always have the disadvantage of playing at a lower level. A former Villa player himself, Southgate joked that he hoped that could be solved soon with the club getting promoted.

He said: “Jack worked with us in the Under-21s briefly. The difficulty is always, although we can see the quality. When the evidence of the opponent is a different level, that’s where it’s hard to directly correlate what that is going to look like at a level above. With Callum [Hudson-Odoi], he’s playing Europa League, he’s playing Premier League, that does make a difference.

Gareth Southgate - Gareth Southgate said it was not impossible for a player from the Championship to earn a call-up, but assessing their quality was more difficult
Gareth Southgate said it was not impossible for a player from the Championship to earn a call-up, but assessing their quality was more difficult Credit: PA

“I’m not going to say we won’t pick a player from the Championship because that could happen but it’s far more difficult to assess his level. You see certain parts of the game but not others. Not the physicality at times, nor the tactical discipline. That’s another level in the Premier League: the speed, the pace. So, he’s a player we know all about, he’s a player we track. But that last bit of evidence that could give you confidence to pick him at the moment we won’t see. But as an ex-Villa man I hope it’s not too long before we do see it.”

There was also encouragement for Hudson-Odoi that he will get the experience he needs playing at Chelsea as the teenager weighs a major offer from Bayern Munich this summer. The 18-year-old has one year left on his contract and has made 18 appearances this season although all his starts have come exclusively in the Europa League and the FA Cup. His progress at international level, where he is still yet to get an Under-21s cap has been more rapid.

Southgate said that he believed Hudson-Odoi had played a good number of games considering his age. “If you look at number of appearances, he has actually been on the field quite a lot,” he said. “I know from when we were talking with the club earlier in the season how much faith Maurizio [Sarri] has in him.

“He [Hudson-Odoi] has got some outstanding players just in front of him. He’s slowly getting more and more game time, and they’ve still got the Europa League as well. So, I think he’s maturing well. There doesn’t need to be a rush for him. I think we’ve seen that with Marcus [Rashford] and his development. He’s getting first-team football and that’s important, so for us, I think his progress is good, and, given that Chelsea could have a restriction on signing people, then his opportunities, if he continues with the level, will come.”

With Eric Dier injured and now back at Tottenham Hotspur, Southgate’s withdrawals from this squad have reached seven and he has to marshal his resources for the trip to Podgorica to face Montenegro on Monday night. Any cover will come from the Under-21s who play Germany in Bournemouth on Tuesday.

“We’ve got competition for places,” Southgate said. “I think with attacking players anyway they mature very young, and they can go in very young. So it’s not an issue to play them, and really we’ve found another player that we really liked [in Hudson-Odoi], but we weren’t certain that he’d be able to adapt to this level, and we’re a bit fortunate in finding him. We probably wouldn’t have done that in this camp, we’d have given him a bit longer in the Under-21s. But already he’s proved in this environment that he can more than cope. He’s a very confident boy.”

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