Gareth Southgate drops hint over England debut for Kobbie Mainoo

Gareth Southgate says he ‘won’t hesitate’ to hand Kobbie Mainoo his England debut after explaining his decision to make a U-turn over calling the 18-year-old starlet into his national squad for the March round-up of international fixtures.

The young midfielder made his Premier League debut under Erik ten Hag last November and has become a regular in the United line-up, alongside Casemiro and Bruno Fernandes in a midfield trio.

Mainoo was initially left out of the England squad for their friendly matches against Brazil and Belgium, with the youngster instead receiving a call-up to play for the U21s. Just a few days later Mainoo was called into the senior side.

When asked about Mainoo’s inclusion ahead of the match against Brazil, Southgate told the press (via The Metro): “We’ve been blessed with St George’s Park being built. This week some of our U17s have come over to work with us, our U21s were there.

“You get a club feel so hopefully that transition is as straight forward as possible because the players have a better chance of performing at their best level if they feel comfortable off the pitch.

“With Kobbie, I said last week we were conscious of his development about how quickly we should go. You need to try make the right steps at the right time with young players. But opportunity presented itself and for us he was the next player in. We didn’t want to stop that from happening.

“As we thought, he’s fitted in brilliantly. His level of training has been excellent – we won’t hesitate to put him on the pitch.”

Southgate also used the press conference to downplay speculation about his future, amid suggestions that Ineos Sports group had identified him as a potential successor to Erik ten Hag.

With 20 appearances to his name for United this season, I guess this is another case of ‘if you’re old enough, you’re good enough’ – which is a tradition our club has followed ever since the Busby Babes under Sir Matt Busby and his assistant Jimmy Murphy.

Mainoo will be an improvement over Jordan Henderson. I think that much goes without saying!

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