England boss Gareth Southgate has wheeled out a ridiculous saying to explain away his indefensible snub of West Ham star James Ward-Prowse.
Public opinion on Gareth Southgate has nosedived over the last year or so and his stock has certainly fallen among West Ham fans.
Southgate has continually snubbed Jarrod Bowen until recalling the West Ham hero for the latest England squad.
There was still no place for his equally in-form and consistently excellent Hammers teammate James Ward-Prowse, though.
Both players have started the new season on fire and Southgate was widely criticised for overlooking them for the September internationals.
The Premier League’s media team even seemed to have a dig at Southgate for failing to select Ward-Prowse.
And West Ham academy graduate Rio Ferdinand said that Ward-Prowse should retire from international duty in protest.
Another former Hammers star Joe Cole warned Southgate he was making himself look ‘silly’ by not selecting Ward-Prowse.
When the England squad was announced on Thursday, West Ham’s £30m summer signing was excluded yet again.
Ward-Prowse responded to the latest snub by making it eight goals contributions in as many games with another assist for West Ham in their Europa League victory away at Freiburg on Thursday night.
Former England midfielder Owen Hargreaves slammed Southgate for his decision – saying only Jude Bellingham was in better form than the Hammers man.
Hargreaves also pointed out Southgate has repeatedly said he will pick players on form.
But now England boss Southgate has wheeled out a ridiculous saying to explain away his indefensible snub of West Ham star Ward-Prowse.
Speaking in his England press conference, Southgate was pressed on his exclusion of several in-form players like Ward-Prowse and Raheem Sterling.
And his response was to tell the press he must be careful to avoid ‘recency bias’.
Recency bias is a type of cognitive bias that causes us to assume that future events will resemble recent experiences.
How can you pick players on form without “recency bias” for goodness sake?
Ward-Prowse has since spoken out saying he is hugely disappointed by Southgate’s decision and that he thought he deserved to be in the England squad because he is playing regularly and to a high level.
We shouldn’t be too surprised by Southgate’s hypocrisy. He was outspoken about the moral issues surrounding Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
Yet he continues to select Jordan Henderson after his move to Saudi and got agitated when he was rightly questioned on the matter.
Southgate may have stunned the press pack into silence as the squad announcement lasted just eight minutes with the Three Lions media team even remarking at the end: “No more questions? Well that was short and sweet.”
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