Five England players with World Cup ambitions who need a transfer this summer

Next summer England will – probably – be at the World Cup. But these five players will miss out unless they get themselves some football sharpish.

Kobbie Mainoo (Manchester United)
There’s some ambitious/ludicrous talk of Leeds United but we suspect that Mainoo will be eyeing rather more rarefied air than can be found in West Yorkshire. There is an admission – after two Premier League games spent entirely on the bench – that he will have to look outside of Manchester United for some first-team football, particularly after boss Ruben Amorim made it clear that Bruno Fernandes is his competition.

Chelsea have been mentioned among his options but he will surely just find similar roadblocks there, with Tottenham making rather more sense considering their need for more numbers in midfield. Thomas Frank’s system will undoubtedly suit him better than Amorim’s.

Still only 20, it seems extraordinary that Mainoo was far better established with England a year ago; he is yet to play for Thomas Tuchel but if Jordan Henderson can get a recall…

Conor Gallagher (Atletico Madrid)
The former Chelsea midfielder was in Tuchel’s last squad, which perfectly illustrates what a dearth of options England still have in central midfield; we’re only just past the point of adding Kalvin Phillips to these features.

Atletico have had a tricky start to this season and Gallagher doubly so, being hauled off at half-time in the opening game and being benched for the second. There have been links with Crystal Palace and he is said to be ‘open’ to the move. It’s hardly surprising…the last time he went to Palace, he was voted Player of the Year and became an England regular.

Harvey Elliott (Liverpool)
This was supposed to be the summer that Elliott left Liverpool after a season in which he started just two Premier League matches…after the title had been won. And yet there he still is, coming off the bench for a few minutes against Newcastle after spending the entirety of the Bournemouth game waiting for a chance that never came.

There’s no doubt that Elliott could make the breakthrough to the England senior squad if he was playing regular football, and he could be offered that in the Bundesliga, at Tottenham as an alternative to Eberechi Eze, or at Crystal Palace as a replacement for Eze. Could he be the World Cup bolter we predicted?

Taylor Harwood-Bellis (Southampton)
One game, one goal. He probably needs to leave the middle reaches of the Championship if he wants to add to either tally.

Joe Gomez (Liverpool)
Jurgen Klopp singlehandedly crowbarred him into England’s Euro 2024 squad with a late flurry of Premier League starts, but Gomez seems unlikely to provoke Arne Slot into the same favour this season. And he is exactly the kind of useful defender that international managers love.

It has to hurt Gomez that Dominik Szoboszlai was picked out of position at right-back for the belter with Newcastle United and if he cannot get a look-in past this version of Ibrahima Konate, then his Liverpool career looks doomed.

The good news for Gomez is that half the Premier League will be desperate for last-minute recruits, and a Gomez playing regular mid-table football might sneak onto that plane.