Tiny margins of international football means tournament form can't be trusted

These international breaks seem to get longer and longer, although maybe we should all be glad of a Premier League respite given the madness of the calendar before the World Cup starts.

I filled some of the void by reading advice on what makes a great newspaper column and one of the golden rules apparently is to avoid easy targets, so with that in mind here's an article on poor Harry Maguire ...

It was painful viewing watching Maguire bumble through 90 minutes against Germany at Wembley on Monday, cheaply giving the ball away on the edge of his own area and subsequently being bamboozled by the fleet-footed Jamal Musiala to concede a penalty before gallivanting up field only to concede possession as Kai Havertz doubled the visitors' lead.

England boss Gareth Southgate claimed during the Nations League double-header which started with defeat to Italy that there was an "agenda" against Maguire and added: "He has been a crucial part of us getting to a World Cup semi-final and was named in the Team of the Tournament at the Euros. Across that period, he was probably our most important player."

You could argue he wasn't even the most important Harry in the England team during those two tournaments but let's not nitpick as Kane only won the World Cup Golden Boot and scored four goals in four knockout matches at the Euros.

When Southgate became England manager in 2017, replacing Sam Allardyce who had been trapped lbw (loaded by wine), he said: "I never pick on reputation - form has to come into it."

The current "he's never let England down" line from Southgate is inconsistent. Jesse Lingard has never let England down so why is he not in the squad? After all, it can't be because Lingard is a sub for his club team because apparently that's far from a deciding factor.

Of course there needs to be a balance.

It would be ridiculous if Southgate continually called up 25 different players for every international because someone had a bright month. But even more bizarre than that is holding on to what a player did in a short period in the summer of 2018 when it comes to discussing team selection for the winter of 2022.

Maguire started six matches at the 2018 World Cup when England beat Tunisia, Panama and Sweden, and five at Euro 2020. Maguire (and those who erroneously think Southgate is some kind of demigod) are using 11 games to make iffy long-term judgements

It's nowhere near enough of a sample size - as a comparison Liverpool and Tottenham will play ten matches each from the start of October to the beginning of November.

This ultimately should not be about whether Maguire has a good World Cup if he is selected because over a handful of fixtures anything can happen, but there is no reasonable explanation for the Manchester United man to be ahead of Milan's Fikayo Tomori.

It's about making enough correct decisions to give you the best possible chance of ending up on the right side of the ridiculously small margins that will determine who wins the World Cup, which starts with Qatar versus Ecuador on November 20.

With the tournament fast approaching this column will now turn into a World Cup watch over the next seven weeks. Hopefully not all of the targets will be as easy as Harry Maguire.

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