James Maddison has the right to feel disappointed. He suffered an injury when his form was high at Tottenham and returned to find his team dysfunctional and unsettled. None of these issues were on his part.
He has performed well when England have been called upon recently, including a cameo from the bench against Bosnia and Herzegovina in Newcastle on Monday when he helped push the tempo in a pedestrian-paced friendly.
“Devastated isn’t quite enough,” Maddison said on Thursday, but he can have few complaints about the decision and if reports of an immature exit tantrum are true, boss Gareth Southgate is justified in thinking this selection call was spot on.
Questions about his attitude have dogged the 27-year-old midfielder since his teenage years, when, depending on who you ask, he was either blessed with extreme self-confidence or a little too flashy for his own good.
The fallout from the casino episode is hard to shake. That was in 2019, when Maddison was uncapped.
James Maddison failed to make Gareth Southgate’s final 26-man squad for the European Championship
England boss Southgate revealed that the club’s recent form was a key factor in his decision
Maddison had a fruitful start to the season at Tottenham as the side won eight of their first ten games
He withdrew from Southgate’s squad feeling unwell ahead of a Euro 2020 qualifier in the Czech Republic, but was pictured at the poker tables at a casino in Leicester on the night of the match.
A month later he returned to win his first cap as a substitute against Montenegro, but waited more than three years for a second, before laughing off the poker furore, claiming it was ‘ridiculous’ and ‘blown out of proportion’. ‘, insisting it was ‘not a problem for Gareth’.
Maddison enjoys playing cards and snooker, and enjoys a night of darts so much that he has turned the darts into his trademark goal celebration, an opportunity that Brentford striker and wind-up artist Neal Maupay found too difficult to resist.
After scoring the opener for the Bees at Spurs in Maddison’s first start after his injury, Maupay borrowed the move and celebrated by pretending to throw darts at a TV camera.
The pair exchanged words on the pitch and the match became increasingly exciting as Spurs ran out 3-2 winners and celebrated the goals with more imaginary darts. The foolishness kept coming later.
“He probably hasn’t scored enough goals for his own celebration in recent years,” Maddison said on TV, prompting Maupay to respond on social media with: “More goals and fewer relegations in my career than James Maddison.”
Yesterday, as Southgate’s decisions became clear, Maupay was back on social media to post a photo of himself with three darts in his hand, the dartboard circling his beaming face like a halo. Another comic bullseye from Brentford’s answer to Jim Bowen is amusing enough and while Maddison may need time to appreciate the funny side, it will boost the pair’s rankings in a desperately thin field vying for the most interesting personalities of the Premier League.
Certainly, Maddison’s appeal is enhanced by his refusal to conform. His interviews are rarely covered in footballer vanilla. He has a sharp wit and a touch of cleverness and is not afraid of his own opinion.
Brentford forward Neal Maupay (right) trolled Maddison after scoring for the Bees against Spurs in Maddison’s first start after returning from injury in January
Spurs had some dismal form during the campaign, including a run of five defeats in their final seven games of the campaign.
It’s great for those of us in the media, but perhaps not if you’re the England manager wondering how he would react to a second major tournament in a row spent firmly on the fringes. It is true that others under Southgate made errors of judgment and overcame them more easily. Phil Foden’s discipline failed him when he and Mason Greenwood broke strict lockdown rules to smuggle girls into Iceland hotel in England in 2021.
That hasn’t hampered Foden’s serene progress to 33 caps, although that is largely because he put in the effort and produced a sustained period of excellent form and a brilliant run of medals for Manchester City.
Unfortunately for Maddison, there is an abundance of talent in his position and he has not put up the same numbers as others in the second half of the season.
He started brilliantly at Tottenham and eventually dropped out after three months with an ankle injury.
Spurs followed a similar line: they missed him when he was away and Ange Postecoglou’s team was different by the time he returned. They were less fluid, not as smooth and full of changes from one game to the next.
Maddison’s game is all about vision and perception.
He sees the playing patterns, detects the rhythms and finds connections. He makes crisp passes around the penalty area, creates space in crowded areas and has a goal threat. Exactly the sort of thing England need to unlock the deep defenses they so often encounter.
However, Southgate has a few others who can do something similar. Foden is Footballer of the Year and consistently does those things at an elite level for City. Cole Palmer’s goals in a productive season at Chelsea have been crucial, putting him ahead of Maddison in the reckoning. Eberechi Eze was an integral part of Crystal Palace’s late flourish.
Spurs missed Maddison when he was away and Ange Postecoglou’s team was different by the time he returned
Due to the emergence of Eberechi Eze (middle) and Cole Palmer (right), Maddison ultimately no longer has a place in the team
Jude Bellingham can operate in the same places on the pitch as he does for Real Madrid, the European champions. The likes of Jarrod Bowen and Anthony Gordon bring different qualities: wide players who have pace and intensity and run at defenders, posing a direct threat on the counter-attack.
At Spurs, Postecoglou’s high line squeezes the play into a smaller area, requiring Maddison’s craft and guile on the ball, allowing him to play in midfield without expecting to win tackles, making a career from box to box or physically dominates the area.
England won’t operate in the same way, not least because they don’t have the same recovery speed at the back. So Southgate asks his squad how he sees his team progressing in the group matches against Serbia, Denmark and Slovenia and hopefully in several tests in the knockout stages of Euro 2024.
Does he have the poise to change form from one type of opponent to another? To flex with substitutes within a game? Does he have cover if he loses a few players?
Maybe those questions are in the back of his mind, along with the casino night and Maddison’s fitness record.
Can he be relied on physically? An ankle injury ruled him out for almost three months of his first season at Tottenham. A knee injury also limited him in the early stages of his final season at Leicester.
Southgate took him to the World Cup in Qatar in 2022, where he was unfit for the first two games and unavailable for the remaining three.
But lingering doubts like these would have been overshadowed by better form. The key factor in the game is that Maddison’s form at Spurs since returning from injury at the end of January left holes in the case for his inclusion.
Maddison He hasn’t scored in three months and he ended the period with just five goals to his name
He hasn’t scored in three months. He has scored once since the fall. He finished the season with five goals.
Eze scored five in the last six games of the season for Palace and Palmer scored five in six days in the spring for Chelsea.
That would have surpassed anything that happened in the casino.
