Harvey Barnes is being called up by England manager Thomas Tuchel as the Newcastle United winger gets his chance in his expanded pre-World Cup squad.
Barnes, 28, snubbed a call-up from Scotland after Steve Clarke tried to move for him. The Burnley-born wide man qualifies for Scotland via his maternal grandparents but wants to play for England
He joins up with the rest of Tuchel’s squad on Tuesday. Barnes, who has 14 goals this season, played 76 minutes of Sunday’s 2-1 derby defeat by Sunderland.
Tuchel is using the upcoming games against Colombia and Japan to test a number of fringe players who he says can ‘win plane tickets’ to the World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico this summer.
Barnes will be one of those in a 30-man group fighting in their last chance to impress before the conclusion of the domestic football season.
Harvey Barnes will get his chance to gatecrash England’s World Cup squad selection
Thomas Tuchel, pictured at the Carabao Cup final, is ironing out his World Cup plans
Scotland were desperate to get Barnes to switch to playing for Scotland but Clarke has admitted his attempts to turn the winger’s head had failed.
‘It’s the perennial question, everybody keeps asking me about it,’ Clarke told BBC Radio 5 Live.
‘This time I can say for sure, Harvey’s going to concentrate on trying to play for England, he’s not going to come to Scotland.’
Given England are only playing in international friendlies, this call-up would not rule Barnes out of playing for Scotland in future but would appear to draw a definitive line under any suggestion of him going to the States as a Scot this summer.
