James Maddison to get deserved England call: Leicester City news

It is very likely Leicester City playmaker James Maddison will be called-up to Gareth Southgate’s England squad next week – here’s why.

There’s a definite air of inevitability surrounding James Maddison’s senior England call-up. Obviously the Leicester City player has the talent and skill set; he proved that last season with consistently impactful performances.

Yet there were questions about Maddison’s maturity; he gets involved in fairly righteous, yet petty, social media squabbles. There’s also the fact he seemed to be committing dives regularly in 2017/18 for the east Midlands side.

Thankfully he appears to have curbed the behavior of looking for fouls. Although he can draw them expertly, he or a team-mate is often in a better place for a shot on goal than a dead-ball scenario. It is frustrating to see.

Three Lions boss Gareth Southgate was concerned about Maddison’s role in his system; Southgate prefers two No.8s as opposed to a No.10 style solo playmaker. However, “Madders” was regularly fielded as a No.8 with Youri Tielemans – with superb results.

Now Leicester City manager Brendan Rodgers has stuck Maddison on the wing – stranding him from his most proficient input, unfortunately. Though the former Norwich winger can play there as he did for the Canaries. Impressing enough in 2019/20’s initial fixtures to be an almost compulsory addition to the England chief’s roster. The St. George’s team play Bulgaria and Kosovo next month.

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While Maddison has impressed in the Foxes team in his first two games of the season, he has been played out-of-position. His chance creation stats will suffer, whilst this role puts him closer to goal; but his finishing was off versus Chelsea, though accuracy will increase as the campaign goes on. Last term he played the most key passes from all top five European leagues.

Obviously Jesse Lingard and Dele Alli – players once ahead of Madders – are respectively injured or out-of-form as usual. This gives the 22-year-old another boost for the likely call, and possibly game-time.

Sky Sports News reported that the ex-Aberdeen midfielder is in line to be a Three Lion:

"Chelsea’s Mason Mount and Leicester’s James Maddison are both in line for call-ups to Gareth Southgate’s England squad next week, after impressing in the first few weeks of the new season, Sky Sports News understands.Southgate’s assistant Steve Holland was at the game and SSN has been told he was impressed by Mount’s level of performance, as well as that of Maddison."