Gareth Southgate is running out of excuses: In comparison to Aston Villa's Tyrone Mings and others, Sheffield United's Jack O'Connell is worthy of England place

What about England?

“A lad who I used to play with at Brentford, James Tarkowski, has made that step-up with Burnley and played at international level, so it has been done," he replied.

“You’ve obviously got to be playing in the Premier League to be considered for England and there are definitely players ahead of me in the queue, the likes of Conor Coady at Wolves. But if I have a good season in the Premier League, I don’t see why not.”

For 'good season in the Premier League', a year on, read 'excellent'. With four games remaining, the Blades are seventh and still in the hunt for Europe. Despite shipping six goals in two games without O'Connell after lockdown, still only two clubs in the Premier League have conceded less than United's 33. With 30 top-flight games under his belt, O'Connell would be a worthy winner of United's player of the season award.

Yet an England call-up still evades him. Gareth Southgate's men have played six times since O'Connell's Premier League debut on the opening day of the season, and still there was no talk of the Liverpudlian being considered for the latest squad before Covid-19 struck.

Outside of South Yorkshire, anyway. In this corner of the world, many can't quite get their heads around it. A few were vocal on social media last night, after Aston Villa and Tyrone Mings lost again to Manchester United, to put another nail in their relegation coffin. Mings, to some of a red and white persuasion, is seen as an example of the FA's ‘big-club bias’.

He has, by almost every objective measure, had a worse season than O'Connell. Villa have conceded 65 goals, almost twice United's number, and O'Connell leads Mings in pretty much every relevant statistical category. The United man wins more duels, recovers the ball more, dribbles and crosses the ball more.

One cost £25m, the other £500,000. One sits on the edge of Europe, the other on the verge of the Championship. One has two England caps, while the other doesn't even appear to be in the international picture.

Mings is clearly a competent player and it would be foolish to lay Villa's failures this season squarely at his door. Likewise, United's success is not down to O'Connell. He is merely a very effective cog in Chris Wilder's machine but, at a time when England are hardly overstocked with world-class centre-halves, he must also come into Southgate's thinking at some point?

The excuses otherwise are slowly eroding. Not good enough? That one has been kicked into touch. Not enough experience in the top flight? Tell that to Fikayo Tomori, a full international after a season in the Championship with Derby and then nine Premier League games. Plays in a back three? So did England, not too long ago - and that didn't work out too badly at the 2018 World Cup, did it?

United fans certainly would not swap O'Connell for Mings, Tomori or, say, John Stones. The longer he goes without getting that elusive call-up - especially as the Blades continue their unlikely pursuit of Europe - the louder those calls should become.

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