John Barnes: England could miss Foden and Palmer’s creativity

The World Cup officially starts tomorrow and England will get their campaign underway against Croatia in Dallas in seven days' time.

We're delighted to have England legend John Barnes on board as our official World Cup Ambassador throughout the tournament, where he will provide us with his expert knowledge and insight into all the big talking points throughout the five-week event from across the pond. 

In our next interview, Barnes talks us through England's tepid friendly performance against New Zealand and whether Thomas Tuchel may rue not picking a certain left-footed pair.

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New customers only. Register, deposit with Debit Card, and place first bet £10+ at Evens (2.0)+ on Sports within 7 days to get £30 in Sports Free Bets & £20 in Bet Builder Free Bets within 24 hours of settlement. 7-day expiry. Eligibility & payment exclusions apply. T&Cs Apply.

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We spoke to John again this week following England's 1-0 victory over New Zealand, and asked him what he thought of the performance, and if any players had improved their chances of starting against Croatia next Wednesday.

“No, because I think Thomas already knows who he’s going to start. Even if somebody played really well and scored a hat-trick, they’re not going to start ahead of Harry Kane. 

"This is a real English thing, in the warm-up matches people expect them to play their best team and win 5-0 or 6-0, otherwise they’ll be disappointed. I remember playing in a warm-up game for England and we only won 1-0 against a so-called smaller opposition and everything was negative. The press was negative. 

"Germany, Italy and the other big teams were playing and sometimes even drawing with the so-called lesser teams and they didn’t get carried away because they were building up to the World Cup. The positivity and harmony was always great but with England, unless we beat everybody it’s negative. 

"Thomas Tuchel obviously knows who his best team is and he’s trying different things, so he won’t be too disturbed by England not playing particularly well against New Zealand.”

John Barnes

We next asked Barnesy if he believed England were going to miss the creativity of the likes of Phil Foden and Cole Palmer in North America?

“If we want to play like Spain, then yes, but if Thomas Tuchel wants to play in a way that wouldn’t benefit them, then they won’t be missed. We’ve seen how creative Cole Palmer can be, but where did Chelsea finish? So it’s not about having one player, it’s about the blend of the team and playing to a system. 

"Only time will tell if their creativity is going to be missed or not and if we don’t win the World Cup, that doesn’t mean we would have done better with them there. The manager needs to pick the players that are best suited to his system and style and obviously he doesn’t feel that Cole and Phil do.”

John Barnes

Lastly, we asked the former England legend, what he made of the man of the match performance of young Liverpool winger Rio Ngumoha and whether he should perhaps have made the final 26-man squad.

“Unfortunately we like to push people forward quickly. Theo Walcott went to the World Cup at 16 and ended up having a great career, but didn’t end up doing as well as we all thought he would because we overemphasised his importance at 16. Let’s see if Rio can play for Liverpool regularly before talking about how good he’s going to be for England because we do this too often. We did it with Emma Raducanu, she won one tournament and we overemphasised her importance. 

"Rio could be a great player, but I’m not going to put pressure on him because if he starts playing for Liverpool more regularly and doesn’t do particularly well early on, then are we going to criticise him? I’d prefer for these young players to develop slowly.

I’m sure he’ll have a great England career but firstly, let’s just wait until he’s playing regularly for Liverpool.”

John Barnes