England Manager Gareth Southgate announces England squad

The Three Lions boss wants his young cubs to really start roaring now pack leader Wayne Rooney has called it a day.

The Everton star’s shock retirement leaves England without a skipper as he bids to steer his men to next summer’s World Cup finals in Russia.

Southgate admits he hasn’t a firm replacement in mind, saying: “Wayne’s been somebody it may have been easy to hide behind for people, because he’s the one who has carried that burden.

“I think that’s been unfair on him. If we are going to be an outstanding team moving forward then you need players who are going to step up in the big moments, step up in games, every time they play for England.”

He added: “Wayne has a fantastic football brain and the players really respond and listen when he is talking.

“Of course the flip side is that with the decision he has made is that some of those players have to come forward and take that responsibility themselves now.

“It’s not so much that they are quiet but I guess they have not had to carry the responsibility Wayne has carried, certainly since Steven Gerrard retired.

“He’s probably had to carry that on his own. Prior to that I still think he was carrying a lot of responsibility.

“I have to say he’s done that tremendously well, but now others have to grasp that initiative and responsibility and it is opportunity for people now.”

Southgate has rewarded some of his England kids – with call-ups for Everton’s Jordan Pickford and Watford’s Nathaniel Chalobah.

Both are uncapped along with Leicester centre-half Harry Maguire who also gets his first call-up.

Southgate said: “None of them are quite where they want to be yet and the future is all ahead of them. That’s exciting as a coach.

“As we saw in the summer, there are some exciting kids coming through. There are young players getting opportunities in the first few weeks of the season, a little bit more than last year and slowly things are looking brighter in the level underneath.”

“For me the balance has got to be okay. They are going to need some experience around them, but also I want to give them their heads a bit and see what might be possible.”

And while he admits that while he’s stumped over the captaincy issue, he won’t be losing any sleep over it.

“I don’t know is the honest answer,” when discussing Rooney’s replacement. “I still look at other countries who pick the most experienced player as the captain or the most capped player on the day.

“I captained every club I was at and at times that was exhausting because I felt there wasn’t enough shared responsibility at times.

“But I go back to England when they won the Rugby World Cup. Yes, Martin Johnson was the captain but that could have been Lawrence Dallaglio, or it could have been Will Greenwood or Matt Dawson.

“There were any number of players in that team who were strong personalities and that’s what we need - a team of strong personalities.”

England’s U20’s certainly showed plenty of the qualities Southgate is looking for as they stormed to victory in the World Cup in South Korea.

And 13 players from that tournament winning squad have been called up for the U21 Championship qualifiers against Holland and Lativia, including Bournemouth’s Lewis Cook, Liverpool’s Dominic Solanke, Newcastle’s Freddie Woodman and Kyle Walker-Peters of Spurs.

England squad: Hart, Butland, Pickford, Heaton; Bertrand, Cresswell, Cahill, Jones, Maguire, Stones, Keane, Smalling, Trippier, Walker; Dier, Chalobah, Livermore, Henderson, Sterling, Oxlade-Chamberlain; Rashford, Welbeck, Lingard, Alli, Kane,Vardy, Defoe, Sturridge.