Gareth Southgate once said that he would love to be able to call up six right-backs to the England team. Talent abounds in that position in England.
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A look at the Premier League offensive stats makes that clear.
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No player in the last call-up has scored more goals than Reece James, the Chelsea right-back, who has four.
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Who made the most goal passes? Another right-back, Liverpool’s Trent Alexander-Arnold, with four assists and who also scored a free kick goal against West Ham last Sunday.
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And Kyle Walker is in the prime of his career with Manchester City.
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Kieran Trippier, pillar of the Spanish champion, Atlético de Madrid, and starter in the English team that played the final of the European Championship, was not called this time.
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Faced with so much talent, Matty Cash, from Aston Villa, became a Polish national to play for that team.
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How do you explain that there are so many good right-backs in England?
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“Good question,” James said Tuesday. “I couldn’t explain it.”
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He added that the position has changed compared to five or 10 years ago, when “the right back only defended.”
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Evolution may be due to the arrival of great foreign technicians who bring new ideas and revolutionize the position. Suddenly playing right back is attractive.
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Pep Guardiola, the sought-after Spanish coach, undoubtedly used his full-backs with great success to support the midfielders and also turn to attack both in Barcelona and Bayern Munich. And he has been doing the same with City since he arrived in 2016. Joao Cancelo, the current left-back, is the City player who has touched the ball the most times in the opposite half.
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Alexander-Arnold, 23, has been Liverpool’s main generator of play for the past three years, following the arrival of German coach Jurgen Klopp.
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And at Chelsea, the European champion, another German strategist, Thomas Tuchel, gets a lot out of James on the right and Ben Chilwell and Marcos Alonso in the left lane. Chilwell is on the national team and scored four times in five games in any given period in October.
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“He wants us all to go on the attack, all the time,” said James, 21, alluding to Tuchel.
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Walker, Alexander-Arnold and James battle each other and help each other too. James said Walker gave him a lot of advice through tough times and encouraged him to keep pushing himself, waiting for opportunities.
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James believes that he is in the prime of his career. He scored three goals in Chelsea’s last three games and made a goal pass. He returned to the national team in place of Trippier.
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Southgate recently said that a defender’s priority is to defend, which is why he preferred Trippier.
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But this time he could not resist and called James and Alexander-Arnold for the World Cup qualifying matches against Albania on Friday and San Marino on Monday.
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“Yes, at the end of the day, you are a defender, not a forward,” James said. “But if you can contribute in the attack, that benefits the team.”
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