Gareth Southgate's predictable squad announcement offers England calm before the storm in Naples

Gareth Southgate is looking forward to "a humdinger of a game in Naples" on Thursday when England start their Euro 2024 qualification campaign with a repeat of the Euro 2020 final against Italy.

It would be pushing it to describe this week's squad announcement as a "humdinger" but consistency of selection is a key principle of Southgate's good-but-not-quite-great tenure as Three Lions manager.

As with any debate on any subject these days, it all comes down to personal prejudices. If you like Southgate, you'll praise his loyalty to players who have served him well at the last three major tournaments. If you don't like him, then he's just picking his favourites and ignoring in-form alternatives.

And if you're of a conspiratorial mind, you'll wonder aloud whether some of the cells on his Excel spreadsheet have been locked, rendering it an administrative impossibility for Harry Maguire, Eric Dier or Kalvin Phillips to be omitted from any England squad.

Brentford striker Ivan Toney, who has scored more Premier League goals than anyone bar Erling Haaland and Harry Kane this season, is in for the qualifiers against Italy and Ukraine but other than that it's pretty much as expected.

And why wouldn't it be? When was the last exciting England squad announcement? I'll tell you – it was when Tom Heaton was named as Roy Hodgson's third-choice goalkeeper for Euro 2016 and I'd had £11.58 at 16-1 that he'd make the cut.

The problem is that fans crave novelty. On the Australian cricket podcast The Grade Cricketer, before any squad unveiling the call is for "something new for the eyes" – a young tearaway fast bowler or a gun batsman who could be the new Steve Smith, Ricky Ponting or, whisper it, Don Bradman.

We know Southgate isn't going to deliver that kind of treat and, as familiarity breeds contempt, it's always slightly deflating to see names such as Dier, Maguire, Jordan Henderson, Kyle Walker and Mason Mount on the list.

Henderson, I was surprised to discover, is still only 32. My perception – clearly an unfair one – was that he's ready for one last season as player-manager at Sunderland, strolling around the pitch oozing class in the sweeper role, before hanging up his boots.

In fact, he's only five years older than Phillips, an influential figure in England's run to the Euro 2020 final who has played only 56 minutes of Premier League football for Manchester City this season.

Southgate defended the lightly-raced City man's inclusion, asking rhetorically: "Well, if you look in the Premier League, who can play as a single-pivot defensive midfielder?"

Incidentally, for any Tory MPs reading, that's the kind of thing you need to tweet next time you're pretending to be a diehard football fan in order to score political points – do they use points in politics or is it tries or goals? – and tickle the bellies of the anti-woke brigade.

The Phillips issue is related to another of Southgate's themes in Thursday's press conference as he pointed out the diminishing number of England-qualified players in the Premier League and suggested that he is scouring the Championship for left-footed options.

He said that 44 of the 55 top-flight January transfers involved foreign players and "of the English deals a couple of those were second- or third-choice goalkeepers [and] three were youth transfers – one was Romeo Beckham".

Hang on, Romeo Beckham? Could the strait-laced Southgate be plotting a sensational, crowd-pleasing shock selection? Just in case England, needing a point from their final qualifier in North Macedonia, find themselves 2-1 down in injury-time with a free-kick in a promising position? Humdinger alert!

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