The first cut is the deepest: James Maddison's painful but logical omission from England's Euros squad.
Gareth Southgate saw the way omissions were handled before Euro 96 and France 98.
Paul Gascoigne was still slightly the worse for wear after a late night on the karaoke and some beers on the golf course at La Manga when summoned to Glenn Hoddle’s hotel room to discover to his shock that he would not be going to France 98. Gascoigne punched the light on Hoddle’s bedside table, and needed to be helped away by Paul Ince and David Seaman, before departing to the airport. Phil Neville, also omitted from the final squad, was in tears on that early flight back.
Informed on tour in Hong Kong that he would not be making the imminent Euro 96, Dennis Wise responded with remarkable calm. “Good on you, Guv’nor,” Wise told Terry Venables. “I didn’t expect to be here in the first place!” Peter Beardsley reacted in dignified fashion by calling a press conference in Hong Kong to announce his international retirement after being told he was also out. At the end, we applauded Beardsley for his decade-long international career, the nine goals and 59 caps. Venables, standing nearby, looked close to tears.
Gareth Southgate made both those squads, Euro 96 and France 98, and saw the contrasting ways in which Venables and Hoddle, a less gifted man-manager than his predecessor, handled the culls. So as the reduction of the England training squad from 33 to the final 26 accelerates, Southgate will doubtless handle it sensitively. Omitting James Maddison, as revealed by the Athletic’s David Ornstein, is certainly the right call by Southgate, who has a plethora of No 10s, but you also have to feel some sympathy for the player. It will be even more painful when the live feed of England training commences at 12.30 today; the footage comes from Spurs training ground, a field of dreams for Maddison.