Could Kobbie Mainoo call-up be signs Gareth Southgate is willing to be bold?

The Jordan Henderson conundrum is a lesson in the need for constant evolution just to stay still. How did selecting a busy point-and-shout midfielder become an emblem of Southgate’s worst qualities and a totem for football’s emerging darker side?

Southgate being undone by Henderson has the irony of a Greek tragedy: a title-winning captain and Mr Reliable made suddenly unreliable in the extreme by his entanglement in Saudi Arabia; a manager praised for his loyalty and team-building dragged into Henderson’s mess by giving unflinching support.

'Standing still' by siding with favourites

It would be sad if Southgate’s contribution to detoxifying the national mood was forgotten, but as he digs his heels in and becomes just like his predecessors, we are four months from the ending and what looms over the era is Southgate’s reputation as a progressive - in every meaning of the word - tarnished.

Clinging to favourites, tactically regressive, and – in his own words - sticking to football because in the face of political unrest it’s easier to claim “I don’t really know what the morality argument is”. This isn’t the Gareth we know.

Surely it can’t end like this? We can’t go from the Brexit-won’t-divide-us Southgate – the kindly school teacher, the inflatable unicorns – to Henderson’s ghost stalking the pitch, reminding us all of his the manager’s disappointing words last August.

Thankfully - thanks to Manchester United and Erik ten Hag, thanks to a 4-3 victory over Liverpool, thanks to a change of heart that nobody saw coming – a different ending is in sight.

Mainoo marks positive change

On March 14 Southgate told the media that it was too early for Kobbie Mainoo, who “only had a handful of games” at senior level and therefore should be given “space to develop at his own speed.”

Five days later, Mainoo was called up to the England squad and, just like that, the trajectory of his final months in the job has changed.

Mainoo’s performance against Liverpool did something to Southgate. He made the most calculating of England managers give in to emotion. Mainoo’s in, and everything is different.

Southgate must realise his sudden u-turn puts the spotlight on the 18-year-old. He must know that contradicting his own press conference erodes trust. But he did it anyway. By Southgate’s standards it is unthinkably bold; a lurch into the unknown to suggests he is willing to give in to public demand.

Midfielders to make England Euro 2024 finals squad odds (via Sky Bet)

• Declan Rice - 1/12
• Jude Bellingham - 1/12
• Conor Gallagher - 1/5
• James Maddison - 1/5
• Jordan Henderson - 1/3
• Kobbie Mainoo - 8/13
• Eberechi Eze - 15/8
• Kalvin Phillips - 5/2
• Curtis Jones - 5/1

Odds correct at 1630 (19/03/24)

We will know more after the friendlies against Brazil and Belgium over the coming week. Southgate has picked high-calibre opponents to help prepare for the knockout rounds at Euro 2024 and therefore the extent of Mainoo’s involvement this month will tell us everything we need to know about how the summer will look.

Should Mainoo get minutes and emerge as the answer to England’s missing midfield link between Declan Rice and Jude Bellingham, well, it would put a whole new spin on what had felt like a meandering descent into conservatism since the World Cup.

Southgate still evolving

Bellingham has been integrated. Trent Alexander-Arnold has become a midfield option. Marc Guehi, Ollie Watkins, and Cole Palmer have become squad regulars. The 4-3-3 that replaced the old 3-4-3 has now given way to a 4-2-3-1 led by Bellingham as a goalscoring number ten, deployed even in a 3-1 victory over Italy last year.

Finally dropping Kalvin Phillips is another sign of Southgate thawing, a clear signal that the final midfield spot is wide open. Even if Mainoo is unable to claim it, there is hope now for Curtis Jones, the standout box-to-box midfielder so often overlooked.

Zoom out, and you see the Southgate era still evolving, still (very slowly) making the expansive steps supporters are perpetually clamouring for the manager to take.

He could, of course, go further. There is simply no justification for Henderson being in the squad, unless his dressing room impact is somehow undiminished by the Saudi Arabia fling (which is doubtful). Certainly his continuing presence while playing in the Netherlands must hurt Phillips, out of the squad two months after Southgate advised him against joining Juventus because it would be a “step down in quality”.

England set-up for Euro success

It looks like Harry Maguire will remain at centre-back when more ambitious options – not least Jarell Quansah - are available, and should Maguire and Henderson still form the spine of the team Southgate will be berated endlessly in the run up to the Euros.

But that Mainoo moment tells us there is life in Southgate yet, that his final chapter can be a flourish. And it should be said: he has been an outstanding England manager thus far, almost flawless, despite the endless media demand he deploys expansive attacking style of the sort that has never won international tournaments in the history of European football.

There is no need to indulge those voices, to go that far. Just get Mainoo in, hope full-back injuries clear up, and the setup is right there: a Phil Foden, Harry Kane, Jude Bellingham, Bukayo Saka front line built by Southgate and universally agreed upon; a Mainoo-Rice partnership that has everything you could want in the middle; and a back four bent only slightly out of shape by the inevitability of Maguire.

Euro 2024 will either be the limp ending that proves Southgate ought to have gone when he first wavered in December 2022, or it will evidence the completion of his tactical transformation and the blossoming of a new young England team. Both options are on the table. The Henderson problem, and the Mainoo u-turn, are where we will find an answer this month.

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