SCOTT WILSON COLUMN: England boss Gareth Southgate will be worried at his squad's enforced winter break

Fatigue should not be an issue for England in Russia this summer – a lack of football might well be. Of the 16 players who were involved in November’s friendlies with Germany and Brazil, only six were involved in Premier League matches or the Carabao Cup final last weekend.

Two or three players played who would probably have been involved with England in the autumn if they had not been injured, but for all the previous grumbles about a lack of home-grown players getting regular game time in the Premier League, it is hard to remember a time when an England boss was forced to watch so many of his senior players shunted to the shadows.

At the start of the season, Southgate would surely have envisaged Marcus Rashford and Adam Lallana being nailed-on starters for England’s opening World Cup fixture. They still might be. But what does it say for England’s prospects if they cannot even get into the first team at their clubs?

Rashford was supposed to be English football’s bright, young thing, and the 20-year-old started when Southgate last named a side for a competitive fixture, against Slovenia in October. He also played a prominent role in both of November’s friendlies.

Since the start of the year though, he has been involved in just 52 minutes of Premier League action with Manchester United, a paltry eight per cent of the time that was potentially available to him. Jose Mourinho regards him as a bench-warmer at best, and the January arrival of Alexis Sanchez is hardly going to enhance his prospects of claiming a regular starting spot in the final two-and-a-half months of the season.

Lallana’s situation at Liverpool is just as bad. The midfielder was arguably England’s most consistent player in the qualifying campaign, and Southgate is on record describing him as a key axis in the way he wants his side to play.

Yet since recovering from a thigh injury in November, he has managed just two senior starts, one of which came in the FA Cup win over Everton. With Jurgen Klopp’s preferred front three in such sensational form, he is another player who is unlikely to find his status transformed between now and the summer. As a result, it is really realistic to expect him to hit the ground running in Russia?

Southgate has previously insisted he will only pick players who are playing regularly for their clubs, but if he sticks rigidly to that policy for this month’s friendlies with Holland and Italy, his starting line-up will have to feature the likes of Alfie Mawson and Kyle Naughton – regulars for Swansea – or Jamaal Lascelles, Jonjo Shelvey and Dwight Gayle, who are consistently starting for Newcastle.

In the case of Lascelles, who has been in excellent form all season, that might not be such a bad thing. But it remains a major worry that so many of Southgate’s most experienced players are getting so little time on the field this season.

In defence, John Stones and Gary Cahill are the source of a major headache. Cahill was drifting out of the international picture anyway, and his failure to force his way into Antonio Conte’s first team is likely to hasten his England exile. Stones was supposed to be the heart of England’s new-look back three though, so the fact he finds himself on Pep Guardiola’s reserves list following the signing of Aymeric Laporte is a massive headache. No wonder Southgate is paying such close attention to both Lascelles and Burnley’s Ben Mee.

Joe Hart’s lack of action in goal has been well documented, but is perhaps offset by the emergence of Jordan Pickford. That said, though, the fact that Fraser Forster is not playing either, and that Jack Butland appears to have developed an alarmingly error-prone streak, means that England’s goalkeeping position is something of a mess.

Further up the field, the problems continue. Danny Rose? Barely getting a kick at Tottenham. Kieran Tripper? In and out of the Spurs team with Mauricio Pochettino edging towards Serge Aurier for the big games. Joe Gomez, who did so well in November’s matches? Struggling to even make it onto the bench at Liverpool. Phil Jones and Ruben Loftus-Cheek? Consistently injured.

A handful of Southgate’s players are bucking the trend, but it is only a handful, and in two or three instances, the players in question are ones he had begun to wash his hands of anyway.

Harry Kane and Jamie Vardy have maintained their usual high standards all season, and while Dele Alli hasn’t quite been at his best with Spurs, at least he has been playing. Harry Maguire has impressed for the majority of the campaign, while Raheem Sterling has been a revelation, scoring 20 goals in all competitions with Manchester City.

Sterling has endured something of a chequered time with England in the past – he was hauled off at half-time against Malta and booed by his own fans when he came off the bench against Slovakia – but alongside Kane, he is one of the few players set to arrive in Russia at the peak of his form.

The other exceptions are people Southgate had ushered towards the exit door, but who he might now feel he has to reintroduce to the fold. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain was axed from the squad for November’s friendlies, but has been reborn under Klopp at Liverpool. It will now be a surprise if he is not involved at the end of the month.

The same is true of Chris Smalling, who has won over Mourinho and established himself as a permanent presence in Manchester United’s back four. Then, of course, there is the eternal enigma, Jack Wilshere.

Few players split opinion as readily as the Arsenal midfielder, but he is back in Arsene Wenger’s first team, and while his club might be struggling, his own form has been reasonably strong. In the past, it has felt as though Wilshere was selected for England on the strength of reputation alone. Later this month, he might well be named in Southgate’s squad simply because he has actually played a couple of games in 2018.