It is Phil Foden’s job to justify his place in the England team, not Gareth Southgate’s to ‘get the best out of him’
PHIL FODEN and his partner visited a mystic for a tarot-card reading before the Euros.
Psychic medium Chloe Smith wouldn’t divulge exactly what she told the Footballer of the Year.
But after her palm was crossed with silver, it’s unlikely that she predicted a place on the subs’ bench for the knockout stage.
But despite an extraordinary 27-goal season with Manchester City — in which he collected a sixth Premier League title before his 24th birthday — Foden’s position in England’s starting XI is up for debate.
Foden’s club form has been so outstanding that his inability to replicate it with England has become another stick with which to beat Gareth Southgate.
City are arguably the best team in the world and Pep Guardiola is widely regarded as the finest coach on the planet.
Foden has played all of his club football — 270 appearances — for Guardiola, who steadfastly refused to loan him out before he became a regular first-team starter.
City play a very specific style and Foden fits in beautifully, after years of repetition.
The idea that Foden should be exactly the same player for England as he is for City is a nonsense.
Listen to the phone-in bores and social-media snipers and they’ll tell you that Southgate needs to release the handbrake, break the shackles, and then Foden will thrive.
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It’s just that nobody really knows what those things actually mean — especially as Southgate’s England have always scored plenty of goals.
Foden, though, has netted just twice in his last 32 internationals — at Hampden Park last autumn and against Wales at the Qatar World Cup.
And he has rarely, if ever, seized a game by the throat for his country as he so often does for City.
It does not help Foden personally that England have Jude Bellingham — a generational talent, perhaps a once-in-a-century talent — playing in the No 10 role he is best suited to.
In Sunday’s 1-0 victory over Serbia, Foden was vaguely anonymous.
Meanwhile, Bellingham was absolutely everywhere, doing everything — a Jack of all trades, master of all trades.
Plenty of pundits are suggesting that Southgate moves Bellingham into a deeper position in order to accommodate Foden.
But the last thing England ought to do, having discovered a nailed-on future Ballon d’Or winner, is to play him anywhere but No 10.
Great players should always be able to play together but, without two footballs, it’s not always easy.
It has taken years of training-ground work and in-game experience for Foden and Kevin De Bruyne to be able to work so well in tandem for City. Southgate doesn’t have that amount of time.
And Southgate isn’t a genius like Guardiola because, well, who is?
There have been suggestions that Southgate has a problem with Foden — just as the Three Lions boss is supposed to have had a problem with most flair players — but the opposite is the case.
Southgate has shown great faith in Foden, backing him despite the incident which saw him sent home in disgrace from Reykjavik after his England debut for a Covid-bubble breach with Mason Greenwood and two Icelandic models.
It is now time for Foden to repay that faith.
Footballer of the Year or not, he needs a big performance against Denmark on Thursday or Slovenia next Tuesday if Southgate isn’t going to look at starting more authentic left-wingers.
The England boss has selected four in-form widemen, all tournament rookies, but all of whom might stake a claim.
Anthony Gordon and Eberechi Eze are both obvious candidates on the left.
Cole Palmer and Jarrod Bowen — who was excellent when he came on as sub against Serbia — could also be in the running.
Tournaments tend to take on lives of their own and squad players can emerge to become heroes in a way that even a tarot-card reader might struggle to predict.