DESPITE the fact that this is a summer without a major tournament, we’re still finding plenty of football to talk about.

England’s women are through to the quarter-finals of the World Cup after an impressive come-from-behind victory over Norway, but it hasn’t been such a good off-season for the men’s under-21 squad.

Given our record in the under-21 European Championships, I’m a little surprised that anyone is shocked by the fact that England have made an early exit, but the manner of their exit was a little worrying.

It’s generally agreed that they were a little unlucky to lose their first game against Portugal, while an excellent strike from Manchester United’s Jesse Lingard earned them a 1-0 win over Sweden. However, a lacklustre performance in their final group game against Italy led to a 3-1 defeat and an early exit.

A couple of months ago, I suggested that England should take the strongest squad possible to the championships, including players like Harry Kane, Jack Wilshere and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.

Kane did travel, as did John Stones, but they were the only players with senior experience in Gareth Southgate’s squad.

Admittedly, having watched Wilshere score twice for the senior side in their win over Slovenia last week, a game that Raheem Sterling and Phil Jones also started, it’s hard to argue that they should have been with the under-21s instead.

However, there were several other players who could have made the trip to the tournament. Ross Barkley was an unused substitute in Slovenia. Surely he would have been better served travelling with the under-21s? Meanwhile, Oxlade-Chamberlain is on holiday.

Southgate’s selection policy was baffling all-round to be honest. In the team that lost to Italy on Wednesday night were five players who spent last season in the Championship and another two who warmed the bench at Premier League clubs.

On the bench were Calum Chambers and James Ward-Prowse. Both of them played a significant number of Premier League games last season and must be better prospects than Middlesbrough’s Ben Gibson and Brighton’s Jake Forster-Caskey. So why didn’t they play?

In my opinion, results in these sort of tournaments should be secondary to performance and giving future England players experience. England’s performances haven’t been great and the experience has been given to a bunch of Championship players. Not a great cocktail.

At least the women are doing well. I stayed up to watch Monday night’s win over Norway and was impressed.

The first half was poor, with the Norwegians on top, but England seemed to find another gear when they went behind and stormed back to win well.

The winning goal kind of proved the point I made about the size of goals in women’s football though. It was a great strike, but it wasn’t really in the corner and a taller goalkeeper would have saved it.

The Norwegian goalkeeper was well positioned and did all she could, but was unable to get across because she’s expected to defend a goal created with men in mind. I still don’t see how that’s fair.

Anyway, England deserved to win – and good luck to them in the quarter-finals against Canada on Saturday.

Basingstoke Gazette:

A great one-day series, but the Ashes could be a different story

THE entertaining one-day international series between England and New Zealand ended with a bang last weekend.

It was great to see England win the series in the manner they did, but a quick word of warning before we get too excited heading into the Ashes.

There’s momentum there, but it’s with the wrong players. Only a handful of the players who excited everyone so much in recent weeks will play in the Test series.

Joe Root, Jos Buttler and Ben Stokes will all be there, but otherwise it’s a totally different team. Don’t get me wrong, the likes of Alistair Cook, Ian Bell, Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad are all top-class players, but they will not be going into the series flush with success.

I’d like to see more members of the one-day team, like Adil Rashid, Alex Hales and even Eoin Morgan given a chance, but I suspect we’ll be back to the likes of Moeen Ali and Adam Lythe.

Basingstoke Gazette:

Champions don't complain

THE world’s best golfers got their excuses in early when it came to the US Open, with several criticising the course at Chambers Bay before the event even began.

More complaining followed during the course of and after the event, with the greens coming in for particular stick.

One person who I didn’t hear complaining, certainly about the greens, was champion Jordan Spieth. A coincidence?!