Manchester City star Phil Foden has been excluded from the start in either of England’s opening two World Cup matches, which has left Manchester United legend and pundit Gary Neville critical of the choice.<\/p>\n
Neville believes England boss Gareth Southgate is faltering by overlooking Phil Foden, which the pundit believes is the Three Lions squad\u2019s \u201cbest talent by a mile\u201d. Foden has been left on the bench for each of England\u2019s opening two World Cup matches.<\/p>\n
The Manchester City playmaker was on the bench until the 70th minute until he was introduced as England blazed through Iran 6-2 in their opening match of the tournament.<\/p>\n
22-year-old Foden replaced Mason Mount in the opening group game but the latter was once again the
\nEngland manager’s choice\u00a0 from the start in Friday night\u2019s clash against the USA. That aside, Foden was also noticeably not among the first substitutes brought on as England labored against their opponents. Instead Jack Grealish and Jordan Henderson were the first substitutes to be introduced.<\/p>\n
Foden\u2019s exclusion from the England side has been lambasted by Neville, who lost no time to highlight that Foden was the squad\u2019s most talented player and that he could not understand why he was not being included in Southgate\u2019 side.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know Phil Foden isn\u2019t playing but for Phil Foden not to be playing for England is a real shame because he\u2019s a massive talent,\u201d Neville said at the half-time break on ITV\u00a0Sport. \u201cI think he\u2019s our best player, our best talent by a mile. He should be playing in that team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neville\u2019s fellow pundit Ian Wright waded in on he felt what was going wrong for England in their clash against the USA, in which they obviously lacked creativity: \u201cSometimes Mason Mount is getting over too quickly, leaving that space for Tyler Adams then they get out. Bukayo Saka going in leaving Antonee Robinson to go forward, we have to get it right.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neville added: \u201cWe had far too many passes at the back, didn\u2019t get to midfield. Their midfield three have made ours looks sluggish, we spoke about (Jude) Bellingham before the game, Mount, they put a group of passes together and if you look at (Harry) Maguire on this (Weston McKennie chance), he\u2019s really poor on this one, you\u2019ve got to get that near post.<\/p>\n
\u201cWatch Maguire, he goes and marks which you can\u2019t do that, you can\u2019t do that. They was brighter, sharper, everything we were doing we wasn\u2019t getting anything right. We know what a talent (Christian) Pulisic is, (Jordan) Pickford is beaten here, it\u2019s massive wakeup call that first-half, they did that the other night and they did weaken so England will be hoping that happens here as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
What had begun for the Three Lions as a free-flowing opening day victory over Iran in which they scored six goals, England\u2019s performance against the USA drastically paled in comparison with an acute lack of fluency in a team performance devoid of any attacking threat throughout.<\/p>\n
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