The famous F365 England ladder crowns a new No. 1 and spends a lot of time shrugging uncertainly
We whinged and complained and stamped our feet about how hard it was to do September’s ladder when we knew so little of Lee Carsley’s plans and vision.
Now we long for the relative certainty of a month ago when we did at least think it was pretty clear he was the manager we were doing the ladder for. Now we don’t know that at all, or have any clearer indication of his plan or even if there is one or even if it matters because by the time World Cup qua;ification starts the manager could be quite literally anyone and apparently most likely Thomas Tuchel.
We also suspect there’s a decent chance that ‘Tuchel odds-on favourite for the England job’ looks as mad by November as some of these shoulder-shrugging rankings will do.
Enjoy. September’s ladder is here, if you want to remind yourselves of that salty effort first.
1) Declan Rice (3)
This is in no way meant as a slur on Rice, a fine footballer who is reliably excellent at his job, but we’re pretty certain there’s no way he could be actual number actual one in any England ladder after an international break where things have gone well. Easy to kind of take him for granted, right up to the point the interim manager names a radio phone-in XI and you lose at home to Greece.
But while Rice had a perfectly adequate international break topped off with a goal, we’ve got him at one for archly pragmatic reasons.
We might not know who the manager is going to be and we might not know what the plan is even if that manager is the current manager, in large part because he himself doesn’t seem to know. But we are supremely confident that no matter what plan the as-yet-TBC actual proper long-term England manager opts to adopt it’s going to require a bare minimum of one central midfielder, and we cannot currently foresee a single scenario in the infinite possible futures that exist where that isn’t Declan Rice.
The five minutes he missed following his late, post-goal withdrawal against Finland were the first England minutes he’s sat out since being on the bench for a pre-Euros friendly win against Bosnia. He hasn’t sat out a competitive England game entirely since June 2022 and a Nations League clash with Hungary. England lost 4-0 that day.
Southgate would never repeat that mistake, and it’s hard to see any other potential England manager doing so any time soon.
So yeah, he’s number one. Well done and sorry we made it sound a bit sh*t.
The Mailbox thinks he needs a buddy, quite possibly John Stones.
2) Jude Bellingham (2)
It’s quite possible in international football where preparation time is short and returns must be instant to make the case that it’s okay to just lean into the idea of letting your best player(s) get on with just being brilliant and hope for the best.
It’s especially tempting with a player like Bellingham who so obviously craves and revels in centre-stage prominence. It’s also just a bit of a cop-out, though, isn’t it? You have to be better than that as a manager, surely? You definitely shouldn’t just come up with a Bellingham-boosting formation on the fly having given it a whole 20 minutes of effort in training. Time with the squad may be tight for an international manager, but not that tight.
You also definitely shouldn’t then just come out and publicly admit you only worked on it for 20 minutes after it goes tits skyward, while issuing quotes about your long-term ambitions in the role so obtuse you end up mainly confusing yourself.
This has been mainly about Lee Carsley rather than Bellingham, but that kind of feels like where we are. Carsley has had a very weird week, one which has ended with no real clarity on what his England vision is, whether he has an England vision at all, and even if this is actually a job he wants to do.
So what chance do we have of actually producing a coherent halfway accurate ladder when we couldn’t ever really nail it under steady, reliable, predictable Gareth?
In summary, then: Bellingham, good footballer, a non-mover at number two.
3) Harry Kane (1)
That Carsley preferred to start with no number nine at all in Kane’s absence is kind of the latest endorsement of just how important he is and how quickly we all forget.
That it went horribly wrong has two contrasting effects, though: it means that particular experiment is unlikely to be repeated by Carsley or anyone else, which means any time now that Kane is absent will give someone else the chance to step up.
Ollie Watkins has come closer than most to showing a consistent ability to offer something both different to Kane and even potentially more useful. Having all the number 10s was clearly an error, but it’s fair to assume any England team will have a good smattering of players who like operating in those spaces.
The problem, of course, is that a large part of what has made Kane so great is his own fondness for occupying those same spaces.
It is more and more possible to argue that while England absolutely do need a proper striker, it no longer is absolutely definitely therefore Kane who does the job.
But for Carsley or anyone else – especially if that happens to be Thomas Tuchel, even though we can’t really have him as such a short favourite at all – it still for now probably is Kane. And fair enough.
4) Trent Alexander-Arnold (6)
A really interesting one, and, we’d suggest, now all but impossible to place. Being an England right-back playing at left-back appears to be a rite of passage that all must go through, but a player who is already questionable defensively would appear to be much the least suited of England’s plethora of right-backs to attempt such a task. The free-kick was lovely, but it’s not really the result of his position, is it?
Alexander-Arnold is very much an ‘if you can’t handle me at my shoddy defensive lapse you don’t deserve me at my dipping free-kick or absurd 50-yard assist’ kind of footballer, and we still subscribe to the notion that for England given how most of their matches are likely to play out most of the time he represents a worthwhile game-breaking gamble. But we would definitely a) play him at right-back and b) make sure there are more than three other players in the team with some kind of defensive remit.
What makes him tricky to place now is that he perhaps more than any other England player is one for whom the identity of the manager is so important. Depending on who that person is he could become a player England build around or one discarded altogether or anywhere in between. We were pretty sure Carsley was in the ‘build around’ camp, but now we’re not so sure about that or indeed about him getting the job at all. So, yeah, there’s a bigger question mark here than just about anywhere else.
5) Bukayo Saka (5)
Largely isolated and ineffective against Greece before hobbling off injured. That this doesn’t move him down the ladder says a bit, doesn’t it?
6) Kobbie Mainoo (13)
Has started every Premier League match for Man United this season but left the field injured late on in the 0-0 draw at Aston Villa and was subsequently withdrawn from the England squad for these two games. If he is fit for an instant return to United duty, it’s been a wonderful couple of weeks for him, because that was a good window to sit out for anyone hoping to bolster the ol’ reputation.
7) John Stones (8)
Has rarely looked shakier for England than he did during this pair of games where he was got at repeatedly and with some success by both Greece and Finland. Could well be nothing more than a serious case of ring-rust given where he stands in the City pecking order but also hard to see what changes there between now and November.
We still think he’s the first defender on the team-sheet for England all things being equal, but in a sane world he would surely have moved down the ladder after the week he’s had.
8) Jordan Pickford (4)
Comes to something when you can’t even reliably and confidently place Pickford comfily inside the top 11 of an England ladder before moving on to thornier decisions elsewhere. While not directly responsible for either goal against Greece he had as bad a game as anyone, and who knows how much his massive early brainfarts there contributed to the air of confused panic that came to overwhelm England’s entire performance?
Then sat on the bench against Finland to further confuse matters, although it does at least help us nail down the pecking order behind him a bit. Even if we’re no longer quite so sure about the ‘behind him’ part. Still surely the number one, we think, but rarely has that felt more by default than it does right now. And for the first time in a long time, it also feels like a cause for some concern. This is an England ladder that has turned confused, worrying and angry in record time.
9) Jack Grealish (10)
If you were going to miss one and play one this week, you definitely wanted to do it Grealish’s way round. Still unclear what his best role for England is and whether that comes from a starting or sub role, but his output across these two breaks is pretty inarguable. Unlike in the summer, the question currently appears to be very much how Grealish is involved rather than whether Grealish is involved.
After this week, that is enough to make him a really quite alarmingly significant positive.
10) Marc Guehi (9)
Okay but not great against Finland to leave England mired in what really might be unprecedented defensive uncertainty. You may not have always agreed with Stones-Maguire as England’s first-choice combination, but you knew where you stood with it. The summer offered a pretty encouraging glimpse that Guehi could at least provide that kind of “Well it ain’t perfect but it’s plenty good enough” stability and continuity, but we don’t even think there’s that now.
Not for the first time, we find ourselves really wishing we knew who the new manager was.
11) Ollie Watkins (16)
Significant contribution from the bench in both games, teeing up Bellingham’s goal against Greece and Rice’s against Finland, but more importantly an obvious beneficiary of the fairly conclusive proof provided in the first game that no, simply chucking all England’s bestest attacking players on the pitch without an actual striker won’t just automatically work perfectly well.
Still very much the man in possession as Harry Kane’s short-term understudy/replacement.
12) Cole Palmer (12)
Getting the England player of the year award after zero competitive starts was a pretty amusing response to the general sense of unease about how England played in the summer, but having been thusly anointed as a Must Play option for these games, he did really very little with the opportunity.
What we keep coming back to with this ladder is that this was a bad break for several players, an even worse one for the temporary manager, and a very good one for Gareth Southgate.
England player ratings vs Finland: Cole Palmer fluffs chance, Gomes shines, Walker doesn’t
13) Anthony Gordon (7)
Just hasn’t really, fully taken the chance he’s been given in what are some pretty gentle fixtures to nail down that problem position for England on the left, which is frustrating for all because it would really help everyone from managers to fans to himself and most importantly ladder-compilers if he could have done so.
Clearly not where he was last season in terms of either form or confidence, which certainly doesn’t help.
14) Phil Foden (11)
Another international break comes and goes with Foden pointedly failing to match his City output, numbers or general involvement. It’s glib and easy to say it just shows English players aren’t very good. There must be a deeper reason why England cannot get the best out of what is clearly a very talented footballer.
All will presumably be solved when Pep is named the new manager, so nothing to worry about in the long term. But for now it remains a head-scratcher.
15) Angel Gomes (14)
A bit like Grealish, really. You definitely wanted to miss the Greece game and play the Finland one if you could wangle out this week. Often damned with the faint praise of ‘neat and tidy’ but at international level especially there’s an awful lot to be said for it, and he showed enough against Finland to suggest there’s more to him than that anyway.
With fans’ views on holding midfielders perhaps recalibrated slightly by the Greece game, it’s been a good break for Gomes all round. A conspicuously Carsley selection in the September squads, but now surely set to outlast the manager who took that punt on him.
16) Dean Henderson (19)
Nice of Carsley to give him a start against Finland so we have something more concrete than shirt numbers to go on for the pecking order. Now we just need to know whether Lee Carsley’s pecking order is actually a thing of any value whatsoever to begin with.
17) Luke Shaw (18)
Is he literally the only left-footed footballer in England? We must be told.
18) Ezri Konsa (20)
Cruelly/expertly timed injury against Man United.
19) Rico Lewis (21)
He’s great, but like so many English right-backs before him, what he is not is a left-back. Was close to being set up to fail when given the task of playing as an out-and-out attacking left-back against Greece, something that is just so very far from his natural game and natural side of the pitch. But youth and versatility as well as his obvious ability do make him stand out in a crowded field.
20) Noni Madueke (27)
Yeah, decent enough off the bench in both games. Another Carsley shout who might have a far longer England career than the man who gave him his chance.
21) Harry Maguire (15)
Asked specifically about leaving Harry Maguire out of this latest squad, Lee Carsley said: “It was a chance of having a look at other players. It’s nothing to do with form. It’s looking at the next two camps to look at other players.” Given that all who’ve had a look at England’s defence in the last two games would conclude it had been a clusterf*ck, we can and must conclude it’s good news for Maguire.
22) Levi Colwill (23)
Got his chance to play central defence for England, just a shame it was in the silliest England team ever. Suddenly really is almost impossible to work out what England’s central defensive order actually is.
23) Morgan Gibbs-White (24)
Another shrewdie who got himself out of all this nonsense.
24) Tino Livramento (25)
Actually a shame he had to pull out of this squad, because what we really like to see is whether young, promising English right-backs can play left-back and now we have to wait at least a whole other month to see Livramento in this vital role.
Ranking the chances of all 50 uncapped England starters: Newcastle pair in top six
25) Conor Gallagher (28)
Got five minutes at the end of the Finland game, which is five minutes more than he might have expected to get for England again any time soon.
26) Nick Pope (26)
Takes spot 26 on the basis that Carsley has picked him in both squads but not used him. That makes him the third-choice goalkeeper until something – very possibly the identity of the manager, to be honest – changes.
27) Jarrod Bowen (17)
Look, there’s never a good time to be left out of an England squad but this was probably as close as you can get given what happened in Bowen’s absence. Responding to the snub with a goal and assist against Ipswich was also a good move.
Upcoming West Ham games against Spurs, Man United, Forest and Everton before the next break look ideal for him as well – high-profile enough to get attention but also actually quite easy to impress. Back in the squad by November is our guess, regardless of whether or not Carsley is indeed the man selecting it.
28) Marcus Rashford (34)
Has to be a climber based on his international pedigree and the undeniable fact that England’s most conspicuous weaknesses in attack continue to come down that left-hand side. England have tried to move on from Rashford but nobody is nailing down that spot, are they?
29) Eberechi Eze (22)
Didn’t really do anything with the scraps he got in the summer and hasn’t made a good start to the season for a struggling Crystal Palace side. Now on the outside looking in and will need to get his club numbers back in shape before England come calling again, rightly or wrongly.
30) Jarrad Branthwaite (29)
A supremely talented young centre-back whose injury problems this season have kept him out of some pretty ropey England defensive performances.
31) Kyle Walker (30)
We warned ourselves not to write him off in the last ladder, even as we were cheerfully writing him off. His England career stubbornly refuses to die, but the theoretically greater defensive solidity he provides is increasingly dubious and he is undoubtedly a massive brake on England’s attacking ambition down that flank when favoured over TAA in particular but really any of the bright young things battling it out for that spot.
Does really feel like it might be time to bite the bullet and move decisively on from an era that was defined by, when push came to tournament shove, Walker always being the choice.
32) Aaron Ramsdale (31)
Go and play football, sure, but not for Southampton you big dafty.
33) Dominic Solanke (41)
Won his second cap seven years after his first and probably won’t have to wait that long for a third. Very funny, of course, that his introduction against Greece completed England’s transformation from false-nine wokeball to four-four-f***ing-two, but he also didn’t really do much – even allowing for the fact that a harum-scarum conclusion gave nobody much scope to really show their general quality.
A lot comes down to what England want from their back-up striker. Watkins offers a point of difference with his running in behind, while Solanke’s hold-up play and all-round game offers more of a Kane-lite solution. What we do know for certain is that one of them should definitely have started against Greece and the fact they didn’t has, if anything, actually boosted them both because nobody will now be demanding a repeat.
34) Liam Delap (43)
There’s a lost generation of English striking talent in the Kane era, with the only currently plausible options as back-ups/replacement both already in their late 20s themselves in Watkins and Solanke, two players whose routes to the top of English football have been lengthy and circuitous.
The disastrous experiment with no striker at all can only offer further help to the one and only Premier League striker who currently ticks every one of the ‘English’, ‘striker’, ‘young’ and ‘scoring goals’ boxes. He will probably have to wait until a full-time manager is in position, because only then is there a manager with the incentive to seek truly long-term solutions, but in such a vital position Delap currently stands at number one on a list of one.
35) Reece James (36)
Set for a return to full training next week after his hamstring injury, but sure to be treated with kid gloves and thus almost no chance of forcing his way into the November squad, one assumes. Beyond that, who knows, but it seems reasonable to assume that while it is impossible to say with any certainty who the England manager might be by March next year, that being able to select a fit and firing James would figure reasonably high on their wishlist. Must be due a stint at left-back for England by now, mustn’t he?
36) Morgan Rogers (38)
Number one on Steady’s list of uncapped England-qualified Premier League starters this season, and fair enough. Progress has been rapid this year and it is surely when not if for a player with genuine scope to play anywhere across an England attack, even though we have (quite literally just) been burned thinking that kind of thing before.
37) Lewis Hall (37)
Number two on Steady’s list of uncapped England-qualified Premier League starters this season, and fair enough. Is the world ready for England to actually select a left-back at left-back when it isn’t Luke Shaw? We don’t know, but the day surely grows ever closer.
38) Curtis Jones (46)
Feels closer than ever to getting himself off the answers to one Sporcle quiz and on to the answers of another. Genuinely quite odd that he remains so resolutely and thoroughly uncapped.
39) Joe Gomez (39)
Urgently needs football.
40) James Maddison (35)
Playing pretty well for Spurs this season, but does rather feel like Maddison and England are ships that have passed in the night. On another timeline, he has 45 caps and nobody thinks that’s at all strange. But it’s also hard to argue the seven caps he has on this darker timeline represent some grave inexplicable injustice.
41) Ben Chilwell (40)
42) Jarell Quansah (32)
43) Adam Wharton (33)
44) Jacob Ramsey (RE)
45) Harvey Elliott (47)
46) Jadon Philogene (NE)
47) Archie Gray (49)
48) Raheem Sterling (48)
49) Sam Johnstone (RE)
50) Phil Neville (50)
