England: Picking Gareth Southgate's 23-man squad for the 2022 World Cup

England are just a few months away from competing at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

Before we know it, millions of fans across the country will be sitting with a beer in hand and a bucket hat on their head eagerly anticipating the prospect of football finally coming home after 56 years.

As such, the time is ticking for England internationals to prove to Gareth Southgate that they’re deserving of a seat on the plane with competition for places at its fiercest since the ‘Golden Generation’.

You only have to look at the fact that Trent Alexander-Arnold, Kieran Trippier, Kyle Walker, Reece James and more are all scrapping it out for the right-back position to see the sort of selection headaches that Southgate will face.

Nevertheless, with the Three Lions dusting off their winter cobwebs to prepare for the tournament in Qatar with friendlies against Switzerland and Ivory Coast, the time is now to imagine what the squad might actually look like.

And trust us when we say that actively sitting down and drawing up your own World Cup squad for England with only 23 players is incredibly difficult with some top, top performers forced to missed out.

It was easy to feel spoilt at Euro 2020 with squad sizes expanded to 26 slots, but the anticipated return to the traditional 23, of which three must be goalkeepers, means that some ruthless calls are simply unavoidable.

So, to give you both an idea of how Southgate’s World Cup squad might shake up later this year and just how difficult it is to even attempt the task, we’ve constructed our 23-man cohort for the sport’s biggest tournament.

Based on current form, but with one eye on how the next eight months might unfold, our squad is ultimately based on the opinion of yours truly and