Newcastle player crashes and Lewis-Skelly surges, the England ladder reveals November naivete.

“Let’s move forward and hope that by March we don’t appear to be complete fools.”

Just before we put Noni Madueke at number f**king 10, we used those words to launch the last

F365 England Ladder following Lee Carsley’s third and final international break. That was always a wish bereft.

It’s funny because we even stated in our lengthy opening speech that it was important to keep in mind that Thomas

Tuchel would be joining with a very short-term emphasis, so we assumed he would give priority to

seasoned professionals over bright young people. Even yet, we never considered ranking

Jordan Henderson among the top 50. Not to mention Dan Burn.

In any case, we now have a vague notion of what Tuchel and his England team will be like—far more

Henderson than anyone had anticipated, not just us—so maybe by June, this won’t seem quite as

off the mark as it does now in November. If it does, there is undoubtedly less justification.

For the TL;DR version, you may just laugh along with some of the statistics in brackets below,

or enjoy a good chuckle with the full majesty of November’s wrongness by clicking here.

Okay, so we’re not off to too bad a start here, are we? Seems obvious now and was always obvious

to be fair that Kane was likely to be a key beneficiary of the Tuchel appointment, but it was still a

hugely welcome sight to see Kane looking far more mobile and far more involved in general play across

these last two games than he did at either the Euros or during the Carsley interregnum.

Maybe he’s just closer to 100 per cent fitness now than he was then, but confirmation at the very

least that he wasn’t on some terminal decline is a huge boost for Tuchel and England. And Kane himself, you’d imagine.

Clearly still the main man in England’s attack and now long odds-on to remain the first-choice No.

9 up to and including the World Cup, beyond which all bets are off for everyone anyway.