England squad: Luke Shaw earns recall to face Spain and Switzerland as Gareth Southgate drops Manchester United duo

Phil Jones and Ashley Young are dropped from England’s World Cup squad along with injured Nick Pope while both Gary Cahill and Jamie Vardy this week announced their retirement

Luke Shaw has earned an international recall in Gareth Southgate’s first England squad since reaching the semi-finals of this summer’s World Cup.

The Manchester United full-back, whose last cap came in March 2017, replaces club team-mate Ashley Young in the squad for Nations League meeting with Spain and a friendly against Switzerland.

Shaw is one of five changes from the squad that travelled to Russia, following injuries to Nick Pope and Phil Jones and decisions by Gary Cahill and Jamie Vardy to effectively retire from international level.

Adam Lallana and James Tarkowski - both named on the World Cup standby list – are named in Southgate’s 23-man squad. Joe Gomez missed out on a place in Russia through injury but returns.

Alex McCarthy, the Southampton goalkeeper, is the fifth change, replacing the injured Pope, and the squad’s only uncapped player.

On Shaw, Southgate said the 23-year-old’s resilience and determination to come through spells on the sidelines at United had convinced him he was worthy of selection.

“He has had a difficult period adapting to a new club, a horrendous injury, but he has had an extra edge to his game,” the England manager said.

Luke Shaw returns to the England squad after missing the World Cup (Getty)

“When it’s been going against his team he has been one who has shown aggression and a desire not to lose. I’m really pleased for him that he looks like he’s playing with confidence.”

Southgate has largely kept faith with the squad which achieved England’s best World Cup finish in 28 years, despite several players failing to earn regular minutes for their clubs this season.

Ruben Loftus-Cheek retains his place after only one, 22-minute substitute appearance for Chelsea. Arsenal’s Danny Welbeck has only a quarter-of-an-hour to his name, while Lallana has just three minutes. Fabian Delph is yet to feature for Manchester City.

“We’re on the back of a successful tournament and we picked a squad for the summer who we believed were the best players for that,” Southgate said. “Not much could have changed because we reached the semi-final and there has only been three league games.

“We wanted some continuity and we had some mature conversations with Jamie Vardy, Gary Cahill and Ashley Young in terms of desire to look at some younger players.

“We had five changes anyway and felt at this stage that was enough, there’s still a lot we want to recap from the summer with the players.”

On concerns about lack of playing time for some members of his squad, the England manager added: “For any players, playing is important and for young players particularly so because they haven’t got 100/200 games behind them. Those learning experiences are really key and you want them to play in big matches as well to experience playing under pressure against the best opposition.

“It’s not that the talent isn’t there, we have shown with the Under-17 World champions, Under-20 world champions and at the senior world cup, there are good English players there. We have some very exciting young players that, if we’re not careful, we’ll lose without those opportunities.”

Full squad

Goalkeepers: Jack Butland, Alex McCarthy, Jordan Pickford.

Defenders: Trent Alexander-Arnold, Joe Gomez, Harry Maguire, Danny Rose, Luke Shaw, John Stones, James Tarkowski, Kieran Trippier, Kyle Walker.

Midfielders: Dele Alli, Fabian Delph, Eric Dier, Jordan Henderson, Adam Lallana, Jesse Lingard, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Raheem Sterling.

Forwards: Harry Kane, Marcus Rashford, Danny Welbeck.