Welbeck and Dunk in 55-man England World Cup squad
Turns out that Gareth Southgate does know Brighton & Hove Albion exist. Danny Welbeck and Lewis Dunk have both been included in the provisional 55-man England squad for the 2022 World Cup.
Southgate submitted his long list to FIFA last month, with Dunk and Welbeck both making it according to The Athletic.
The Three Lions boss then names his final 26-man squad on Thursday 10th November – 11 days before England kick off their campaign against Iran.
It would be a major shock if Dunk or Welbeck were to be on the actual plane to Qatar, seeing as neither have been on Southgate’s England radar for over four years.
Their most recent tastes of international football came when Theresa May was Prime Minister, the simpler time of 2018. England were fresh from their surprise run to the semi final of the World Cup in Russia.
Welbeck went to that tournament, making his only appearance in the final group game. England lost 1-0 in a dead rubber against Belgium in Kaliningrad, where the vodka is very cheap and the home brewed beer very strong.
Dat Guy maintained his place in the next squad for September home games in the Nations League against Spain and a friendly with Switzerland. The 1-0 win over the Swiss at the King Power Stadium proved to be the most recent of Welbeck’s 42 caps.
Dunk meanwhile made his one-and-only England appearance two months later in November 2018. The Albion captain was relatively untroubled as the United States were soundly beaten 3-0 at Wembley in a game memorable for being the 120th and final match Wayne Rooney played for his country.
Quite what happened whilst Dunk was with England nobody knows. But he must have run over Southgate’s cat or something as despite being one of the most consistent centre backs in the Premier League over the past five seasons, he has not been called up to an international squad since.
Bookmakers like TonyBet do not rank the Brighton duos chances of going to the World Cup highly. Dunk is a general 9/1 shot, which puts him around 17th in the pecking order behind three former Albion teammates – Ben White, Dan Burn and Fikayo Tomori.
Welbeck is at 20/1, leaving him 10th in the list of strikers. In the unlikely event that Welbeck were to be on the plane, he would surely be the first centre forward in football history to go to a World Cup having not scored a goal in the season leading up to the tournament.
Two other Brighton players might have been worthy of inclusion in the 55-man provisional England squad alongside Dunk and Welbeck.
Solly March has been in outstanding form this season, including when making the world’s most expensive ever full back Marc Cucurella look like Dan Harding as Brighton embarrassed Chelsea 4-1 at the Amex.
March would bring the sort of versatility which is valuable at an international tournament. He can play on both the right and left wings and do a job as an orthodox full back.
With England struggling with injuries at right back and a lack of depth at left back, March could have been one player offering a solution to several holes in Southgate’s squad.
Had this controversial winter World Cup taken place back in February rather than across November and December, then Adam Webster would almost certainly have made the 55-man list.
Webster was superb over Christmas and throughout January with rumours abounding that Southgate was set to call him up for England’s March internationals.
Unfortunately, injury struck just as Webster’s star was shining its brightest. He struggled for form when he returned towards the end of the 2021-22 campaign and although he has improved on that so far this season, he has not reached the standards set at the turn of the year.
If Tariq Lamptey had not switched from England to Ghana, then he too might have been in the running. Lamptey’s decision was heavily influenced by the obscene amount of competition at right back from the likes of Kyle Walker, Kieran Trippier, Reece James and Trent Alexander-Arnold.
But with Walker and James struggling with injury and Alexander-Arnold out of form, Lamptey could well have found himself thrust into the squad by Southgate.
Lamptey of course will be at the tournament anyway with Ghana. We wait to see if Dunk and Welbeck will also head to Qatar. Over to you to surprise again, Mr Southgate.
