Elliot Anderson is being cast as England’s new No 6. That is a disservice. A six, by convention, sits. Anderson does not sit. He stands up and he is counted. He runs, passes, tackles and shoots.
His heat map from Tuesday’s 5-0 win over Serbia show him impacting far higher up the pitch - he is a No 8 by output and, on the back of this international break, he should be Thomas Tuchel’s No 1 pick.
To borrow from the lineage of his home city, the Geordie is the England midfielder Michael Carrick should have been but with the urgency and adventure of Paul Gascoigne.