Sutton describes Southgate’s England midfield options as a nightmare

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Sutton has questioned whether the likes of West Bromwich Albion’s Jake Livermore should be holding it together in midfield for the Three Lions.

BBC pundit and former Premier League star Chris Sutton has slated England’s current midfield situation, suggesting that the players at Gareth Southgate’s disposal are not even marginally close to being good enough to help lead any country to World Cup glory.

Traditionally, England have always had quality midfield players with Nicky Butt and Paul Scholes breaking through at the time of Sutton’s one and only cap, while the likes of Paul Gascoigne, Paul Ince and Steve McManaman were still kicking about.

Perhaps Three Lions fans have been somewhat spoilt over the past decade with Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard and Scholes to decide between. However, that does not change the fact that England’s midfield is severely lacking in quality according to Sutton.

Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live, the former Premier League champion said: “It’s absolutely a nightmare for Gareth Southgate. You get the likes of Jake Livermore who can barely get a game for West Brom.

“Lewis Cook has been called up, I’m not knocking him, good young player that he is, but are these players going to win you the World Cup?

“The truth is the holding midfield area is a nightmare. We can’t name a first choice in there.”

Sutton’s criticism may seem slightly harsh considering England do possess options such as Jack Wilshire, Eric Dier and Jordan Henderson. However, there is some truth behind the view that the national team is lacking in dominant, world-class central midfielders.

Like Livermore, Wilshere has been plying his trade with a seriously under-performing team, and will not be going into the World Cup off the back of a terrific season with his club as Arsenal continue to struggle along in the Premier League.

With a pretty poor defence in terms of world standards, and somewhat of a goalkeeping crisis on top of that, England’s superb attacking options may feel fairly restrained in Russia. Any team can have Harry Kane in it, but unless the midfield performs and provides the platform for the striker to excel like Tottenham do on a weekly basis, his powers become somewhat obsolete.