Southgate will announce which Three Lions players have sealed a place on the plane to Qatar on or around Thursday, October 20 – the date which FIFA have set for all 32 teams competing to name their final squads.
The England boss also has the option of naming his squad earlier but would appear likely to wait until the deadline which is 30 days before the World Cup’s opening game.
Kalvin Phillips is United’s most recent England international but the Yorkshire Pirlo joined Manchester City for £45m this summer and pulled out of the Three Lions squad for this month’s Nations League games due to a long standing shoulder injury which requires surgery.
Patrick Bamford is now the sole capped England player within the Whites squad and the striker bagged his only outing so far for his country last September in a World Cup qualifier against Andorra at Wembley.
But Bamford then suffered a series of injury setbacks last season and has only recently returned to the team just over one month before the start of the World Cup.
Whites winger Jack Harrison was capped for England at under-21s level back in 2017 and the 25-year-old is reportedly on Southgate’s radar but Harrison has yet to make any of Southgate’s squads.
Leeds also have a host of England youth internationals, headed by Charlie Cresswell who bagged his seventh cap for the under-21s on Thursday evening in a 2-0 victory against Italy.
Several bookmakers have betting markets on the chances of a whole host of players being picked in the England World Cup squad, including several Whites players and also ex-Leeds men.
Here, in descending order, is how their chances of boarding the plane are rated.
