FOLLOWING his goalscoring debut for the senior team, there has been plenty of talk about whether Tottenham Hotspur striker Harry Kane should represent England Under-21s at their European Championships in the summer.

There seem to be two main schools of thought.

On one side are people like Stuart Pearce, a former England Under-21 boss, who believe that going to the championships would be of great benefit to not only Kane, but several other players who have already broken into the senior team.

On the other side, there are people who argue that once a player has been involved in the senior squad, there is little to be gained from them going to a tournament with the under-21s.

Kane himself seems keen to take part, but it can be taken to an extreme. The likes of Phil Jones, Jack Wilshere, Raheem Sterling, Ross Barkley and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain will all be eligible to play and it has been suggested that they too should travel.

The main example supporting this theory is the German team that won the 2009 European title. The Germans sent their best team to the event, beating England convincingly in the final, and five of them went on to play in the World Cup Final five years later (it would have been six, had Sami Khedira not gone down injured in the warm-up).

That’s a pretty convincing argument. Of course, it’s fair to say that the likes of Manuel Neuer, Khedira and Mesut Ozil probably would have gone on to impress at senior level either way, but going to the Euros certainly didn’t do them any harm.

The situation would be slightly different if players like Jones, Wilshere, Sterling and Oxlade-Chamberlain, who are all established senior players, were to travel. In 2009, the German players only had a handful of caps between them.

Would these players really want to travel to a junior international tournament in what should be a summer off? Possibly not, but surely it’s worth having a conversation.

Their managers would certainly not encourage the idea, wanting their players to have a break.

The other main barrier standing in the way of this happening is the loyalty of under-21 manager Gareth Southgate to the players who have taken England to the Championships.

If six or seven senior players were parachuted in, the majority of them wouldn’t get to play and some would miss out on a place in the squad altogether.

It doesn’t sound particularly fair on them, but it’s important to remember that the purpose of the under-21 international football is to prepare players for the senior team.

The under-21s did really well to beat Germany earlier in the week, but very few of them are playing regular Premier League football at the moment. If a player is ever going to be good enough to play for England, I’d argue that they will be regulars in the Premier League by the age of 20.

A prime example of this is defender Luke Garbutt. No, I hadn’t heard of him either. He’s at Everton, but he’s a year older than club-mate John Stones, who is a regular for the Goodison Park club and already has senior caps to his name.

Garbutt may prove me wrong and turn out to be an excellent player, but at this point in time, is he or Stones more likely to become an England regular? It’s a no-brainer.

Loyalty is a fine quality, but it can be easily be misplaced. What’s the point in giving this experience to a player who goes on to spend his entire career playing in the lower leagues?

Southgate needs to be ruthless. If he believes that it will benefit our young players, he should take the strongest squad possible to the championships.

I have to admit that I’m still not sure exactly how beneficial going to the under-21 championships would be for the players who already have plenty of senior experience.

One of my biggest bugbears is the fact that England play international matches in early June during years when there is not international tournament. Players who could have six weeks off end up with just three week’s rest.

Taking players like Sterling, who will be at the end of a long season with Liverpool, to a junior tournament due to go on well into June doesn’t really make sense.

On the flip side, it would undoubtedly be a good thing for these players to bond, train and play together, so they have a better understanding when they play for the senior side.

Unless we try, we’ll never know whether it’s a good idea or not.

Let’s give it a go.