NEWS FLASH: The Sensational football player for Bournemouth has donated a £190 million reward to the hospital staff in appreciation for saving his life.

The England press pack has decided that Lewis Cook should have been in the England squad all along. They just never mentioned it.

Not enough Cooks to spoil the England broth
If you weren’t already aware that the England press pack live in some kind of bubble during a major tournament then read this from the Daily Mail’s Craig Hope on who should play in midfield v Slovenia.

Well, it should not be Trent Alexander-Arnold, and Southgate does look set to make a change in midfield. It wasn’t a great look for the England boss to be speaking about ‘experiments’ at a major tournament, a failed one at that.

There has been talk out here among the press pack and former players that the solution for the deeper midfield role is sitting at home in England. Not Jordan Henderson or Kalvin Phillips, but Bournemouth’s Lewis Cook, who had an outstanding season and was capped by Southgate in a friendly against Italy in March 2018.

Alas, Cook is not here, so it will be one of Conor Gallagher, Adam Wharton, Kobbie Mainoo and Jude Bellingham who partners Declan Rice.

Alas? Alas? Mediawatch has done some extensive research and we cannot find one single member of the English media who suggested at any point that Lewis Cook deserved an England recall. Not one. Nobody had him in their preferred England squads; nobody opined his continued absence from the England scene.

But now, in the midst of a tournament, the ‘solution’ was apparently obvious all along.

Odd how Craig Hope himself never mentioned Cook when discussing the final England squad, picking Kobbie Mainoo as his choice in midfield for the opening clash against Serbia.

He also picked Kyle Walker at centre-half in a back four – a position we don’t believe Walker has ever played – because he didn’t ‘rate’ actual centre-half Marc Guehi, so maybe we should take anything he says with a pinch of salt.