Tottenham happily bear weight of England’s future

There’s really no use being coy about it: for the last year, Tottenham have provided the core of the England national football team — and their role only seems set to grow.

Critics might point out that that Tottenham core did nothing to prevent England from inglamorously exiting last summer’s European Championships in France. While that is fair, it doesn’t tell the full story.

Beyond the fact that Roy Hodgson’s tactics and inexplicable dependency on Wayne Rooney played bigger roles in that failure, those Spurs players were green.

While Kyle Walker and Danny Rose enjoyed several seasons of experience prior to the tournament, Eric Dier, Harry Kane and Dele Alli were all only just concluding their second term of meaningful playing time in the Premier League and playing in their first major international tournament.

It’s no surprise, then, that Walker and Rose were unquestionably the stand out players for England. The rest shined in brief moments, but struggled almost as often.

One year on, though, and those players — minus an injured Rose — remain the core of Gareth Southgate’s team. With Rooney not selected, James Milner retired and the pickings elsewhere relatively thin, Tottenham players can expect to feature heavily in this coming week’s World Cup qualifier agains Scotland and friendly against France.

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Spurs’ once-back-up, now-potentially-starting right-back Kieran Trippier also got called up, keeping the north London’s side’s player contribution steady at five — the most of any Premier League team. It’s unclear if the former Burnley man will feature with Walker fit, but it’s an encouraging sign for Spurs nonetheless.

Perhaps more encouraging is England under-20 team currently participating in the Under-20 World Cup taking place in South Korea. A squad that includes Tottenham youngsters Josh Onomah and Kyle Walker-Peters take on Italy in a semifinal on Thursday in hopes of reaching their first ever final in the competition.

Both Onomah and Walker-Peters started in the 1-0 win over Mexico that got them into the semis, though Onomah is slated to miss out against Italy due to a second yellow card.

That pair offers encouraging signs of Tottenham’s future role in providing for England. The same could be said for Harry Winks, another Academy product who just began to get minutes this season, and young prodigy Marcus Edwards. Both players stand to play a role in the England set up in the years to come.

Tottenham’s interest in English players is understandable. The Football Association requires that a certain amount of any given squad be composed of home-grown talent. What’s more, sourcing youngsters from down the street in north London is much easier — and cheaper — than scouring the academies of Spanish, French and German teams.

There’s also no shortage of national pride involved. With the Manchester clubs, Chelsea and Arsenal continuing to lean heavily on foreign players, the Premier League team built around an English core is becoming increasingly uncommon.

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Tottenham will have some competition in this regard from Everton. Ronald Koeman’s team contributed no players to Southgate’s senior squad for the upcoming pair of matches, but did provide six between the current under-20 and under-21 sides.

With savvy transfer market moves and continued emphasis on development however, Spurs appear set to be a defining force in this generation of England football.