With Clayton and Pogba away on international duty, the door opens for others to shine

Steve Davis says that Max Clayton’s International call-up for the England’s Under-19s could cost him his place in the Crewe Alexandra starting line-up. Noel Blake was at Gresty Road on Saturday to see Clayton start against Shrewsbury and he will be under consideration for the England youngsters against Turkey on Thursday night at Telford.

Davis would never stand in the way of his players going off to represent their countries and he has said the same applies to Mathias Pogba when he joins up with Guinea after our mid-week fixture. Our leading scorer will miss Saturday’s trip to Crawley.

Steve Davis told crewealex.net: “Max is now away from England. We always give our players every chance to go off and to play for their countries and it is a tremendous honour, but on the flip side they go out of the team and could lose their place.

“I wanted to give Max a run in the side and I told him so before he accepted the offer to go off with England. He wanted to go and we respected that. It is the same with Pogs. It can disrupt their opportunities if they are away, that is unfortunate but realistic.

“If someone comes in and does well then they stay in the team and missing a game is obviously going to be detrimental to their place if they go and someone does well in their place.

He added: “There are places are for grabs, especially with the Wembley game coming up, so this could be an opportunity for different players to grab their chance.”