West Ham United: Darren Bent rages live on talkSPORT as James Ward-Prowse news emerges

Darren Bent has raged at the decision by Gareth Southgate to leave West Ham ace James Ward-Prowse out of his latest England squad.

Speaking on talkSPORT on Thursday (5 October), the pundit said the 28-year-old has been “unbelievable” for the Hammers this season since signing from Southampton over the summer.

He added that the midfielder deserves to be in the England squad for the games against Australia and Italy ahead of Kalvin Phillips and Jordan Henderson.

“Ward-Prowse – what is going on?” asked Bent. “Ward-Prowse has been unbelievable this season. His delivery into the box, his quality, his work rate. I get it, I know Kalvin Phillips has never let Gareth down and all that.

“But you cannot tell me, if you go through the squad and I’m going to put my boy Jordan Henderson into this equation, Jordan, Kalvin Phillips, you could even say Conor Gallagher but I can understand why he’s in there.

“But you can’t tell me any of the other two have played better than Ward-Prowse, absolutely not.”

It’s pretty clear that Southgate has his favourites and it’s always been that way since he took over as the England manager in 2016.

If a player hasn’t put much of a foot wrong while he’s been in charge, which is the case for Phillips, then you can kind of understand them still being selected.

But Henderson is now playing at a much poorer standard in the Saudi Pro League and he looked well off the pace in the last international matches.

During the time since then, Ward-Prowse has continued to put in top-class performances for the Hammers, scoring two goals and laying on seven assists in nine games this season to prove why he should be in the squad.

There is absolutely no way that he should be missing out on the latest round of international fixtures, but he can have a little break over the next couple of weeks and look forward to putting in some more excellent displays for us when the Premier League returns later this month.