Harry Winks made his England debut in October but has the Tottenham midfielder now fallen down the pecking order at international level?
Harry Winks made his England debut during the 1-0 World Cup qualification victory over Lithuania and impressed in his role in central midfield.
That was on October 8 and despite missing the Three Lions’ next two fixtures – two 0-0 friendly draws with Germany and Brazil – at the time it was generally considered that Winks would be on the plane to the 2018 World Cup.
Fast-forward a few months and that is no longer the case. At the time of his senior international call-up, Winks was in the middle of starting four successive Premier League matches for club side Tottenham Hotspur.
Yet since December 16 the 22-year-old has played just six minutes of football in the top tier of English football. This has been partly due to injury, but in the last two months Winks’ first team exploits have been almost exclusively limited to FA Cup matches against lower league opposition in Newport County and Rochdale.
England have two more games before manager Gareth Southgate announces his squad for the tournament in Russia, friendlies against Netherlands and Italy on March 23 and 27 respectively.
It would be reasonable to argue that unless Winks can get enough game time with Spurs over the next month to force his way into contention for those matches, then the midfielder won’t be among the 23 players selected come the summer.
This is not to say that the Englishman is not still a great talent developing well under Mauricio Pochettino, but as far as this upcoming World Cup goes time may be running out to make the cut.
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