Captain Harry Kane is unhappy with the number of players who have withdrawn from the latest England squad, insisting “England comes before club”.

Nine players have dropped out of the squad for Lee Carsley’s final two matches as interim manager before Thomas Tuchel takes charge in January.

“I think England comes before anything. England comes before club,” Kane told ITV Sport.

“England is the most important thing you play as a professional footballer and Gareth [Southgate] was hot on that and he wasn’t afraid to make decisions if, you know, that started to drift from certain players.”

When asked if the desire to play for England has drifted this international break, Kane said: “Yeah, it’s a shame this week obviously.

“I think it’s a tough period of the season, maybe that’s been taken advantage of a little bit.

“I don’t really like it if I’m totally honest. I think England comes before anything, any club situation.”

Trent Alexander-Arnold, Cole Palmer, Phil Foden, Jack Grealish, Bukayo Saka, Declan Rice, Aaron Ramsdale and Levi Colwill have dropped out.

Everton’s Jarrad Branthwaite was one of the replacement players called up to the squad, until he became the ninth player to withdraw.

Liverpool’s Jarell Quansah is set to be his replacement, having trained with the team for the past two days.

England likely must beat Greece in Athens on Thursday and Republic of Ireland at Wembley on Sunday if they are to be promoted to League A of the Uefa Nations League.

It’s far too harsh to call it the “rookie wall,” but this year’s much-praised class of first-year quarterbacks — led by the Commanders‘ Jayden Daniels, the Broncos‘ Bo Nix, the Bears‘ Caleb Williams and the Patriots‘ Drake Maye — has seen its precocious start drop off a bit from its peak a month ago.

In Week 6, we noted that the rookies had combined for 12 touchdown passes — the most by rookies in any week in any season in NFL history — but in four weeks since, they’ve totaled 13, closer to normal rookie production.

It’s the reality of being a rookie quarterback in the NFL. The rookies have gone 1-3 in each of the last two weeks. Amazing upset bids can come up short, like Nix’s Broncos against the Chiefs, scuttled by a blocked field goal. Promising comebacks can do the same, as Daniels threw an 8-yard pass on fourth-and-9 in trying to rally Washington in a one-point loss to the Steelers.

And Williams has seen a decidedly rough patch where the Bears offense stalled so completely that offensive coordinator Shane Waldron was fired Tuesday. After a 4-2 start, the Bears have dropped three straight and averaged 9 points a game in that slide. Williams hasn’t had a single touchdown in those three games, and after completing 65% of his passes in the first six games, he’s at 51% in the past three.

One thing this year’s rookie quarterbacks have managed to avoid consistently are interceptions. Of this year’s rookie starters, only Maye (3.3%) has an interception percentage above 2%. For comparison, all the rookies in 2022 were over 2%. This year, the class average is 1.77%, down from 2.06 last year, 2.94% in 2022 and 3.21% in 2021.

This is a challenging week for the four rookies: Daniels has a spotlight game Thursday night at Philadelphia, Williams will get his first shot with new offensive coordinator Thomas Brown at home against the Packers, and the Broncos host the division-leading Falcons. Maye has the easiest of the lot, at home against the Rams, but chances are it’s another 1-3 week ahead for the rookie QB starters.

Will the Bears and Caleb Williams rebound after firing OC Shane Waldron?

Adonai Mitchell finally arrives

The top tier of this year’s rookie receiver class — nine taken in the first 34 picks — has been outstanding in making an immediate impact, but the rest of the drafted receivers have struggled to get catches, let alone touchdowns.

Patriots second-rounder Ja’Lynn Polk has 80 receiving yards all season, Jets third-rounder Malachi Corley has 6 yards, and Steelers third-rounder Roman Wilson, limited by injuries, has played in one game, with no catches.

Colts second-round pick Adonai Mitchell had also struggled for much of his rookie season. Entering Sunday’s game, he had just 12 catches on 32 targets — that’s a 37.5% catch rate, third-lowest in the entire NFL (with as many targets) behind Polk (37.0%) and Packers receiver Dontayvion Wicks (37.2%).

But facing the Bills last Sunday, Mitchell stepped up in a big way, filling in for an injured Michael Pittman Jr. and connecting with quarterback Joe Flacco. Mitchell had six catches on six targets for 71 yards, five good for first downs. It came in a losing effort, but for the first time this season, he showed the promise he had in scoring 11 touchdowns at Texas last season.

Tyrone Tracy Jr. emerges for New York

The Giants have lost five straight games, but a bright spot continues to be rookie running back Tracy, a fifth-round pick who played at Iowa and Purdue. Since taking over as the primary back six weeks ago, Tracy ranks fifth in the NFL with 516 rushing yards, and his average of 5.4 yards per carry is good enough that only the Ravens‘ Derrick Henry and the Eagles‘ Saquon Barkley have better averages on as many carries over the past six games.

The Giants are contemplating a quarterback change from Daniel Jones, but a smart decision would just be to use Tracy more in the red zone. New York has the worst red-zone offense in the NFL, not only in terms of scoring, but with five red-zone turnovers as well. They’ve had 82 plays inside the opposing 20 and have turned to Tracy on just 13 of them — about 15% — and ramping that number up, either in the run game or passing, would help whoever plays quarterback.

Another rookie shining for Rams

No team has gotten more from its rookies than the Rams, and the depth of that group — 18 rookies on the 53-man roster at one point — can be seen in undrafted rookie linebacker Omar Speights. He made the roster as a special-teams player, but an injury to Troy Reeder has put Speights on the field on defense in the past three weeks. He had eight tackles in 39 snaps in Monday’s loss to the Dolphins, after totaling just six all season. The impact on both sides of the ball from the Rams’ rookie class is something that will give them an inexpensive core for years to come, and Speights only adds to that cache of young talent.

Greg Auman is an NFL Reporter for FOX Sports. He previously spent a decade covering the Buccaneers for the Tampa Bay Times and The Athletic. You can follow him on Twitter at @gregauman.

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“From the moment we started the recruitment process, Gareth and Richard were our number one targets,” said Town’s director of football Micky Moore. “It is a massive coup for Shrewsbury Town to have them here.

“I’ve known Gareth for a long time. He was the stand-out candidate. And he is someone I have always admired for the outstanding work he did at Wycombe.

“He brings to this football club an enthusiasm and a wealth of knowledge having managed more than 150 games in League One. He is exactly what we need.

“I’m sure, in time, we will be able to build a football club that will really make the town and our supporters proud.”

Long-serving Shrewsbury chairman Roland Wycherley is in the process of trying to step down as the owner of the Shropshire club.

Ainsworth, who has worked as a match summariser in the media over the past 12 months, is Wycherley’s 15th and probably final appointment after 28 and a half years at the helm.

“I would like to extend a very warm welcome to Gareth and Richard at this difficult time,” said Wycherley. “I wish them every success in their endeavours as they work to restore the feel-good factor to our club.”

Shrewsbury sit 24th in League One, having swapped places with Burton Albion as a result of their 2-0 defeat by the Brewers last weekend.

First-team coach Sean Parrish took caretaker charge of both that and Tuesday’s 3-0 EFL Trophy hammering at Walsall.

Town are scheduled to return to action on 23 November with a lunchtime home game against title favourites Birmingham City.

A flurry of withdrawals from senior players has hit interim England manager Lee Carsley’s plans for his final two games in charge this week.

Experienced internationals Declan Rice, Bukayo Saka, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Phil Foden and Jack Grealish are among eight players to have pulled out – many citing injury – from the third international break of a busy season.

Some reports have cited pressure from clubs for the amount of drop-outs, with Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola critical of Grealish’s initial call-up for Nations League games against Greece and Republic of Ireland.

And for players and fans, these two games represent a strange ‘limbo’ period before new head coach Thomas Tuchel takes over in January.

The five replacements called up by Carsley, including Aston Villa’s Morgan Rogers and Everton’s Jarrad Brathwaite, both 22, have taken the squad’s average age down to 25 years and four months, including five uncapped players.

England’s Euro 2024 squad under former manager Gareth Southgate had an average age of 26.1 years, which was already the third youngest at the tournament behind Turkey (25.8) and the Czech Republic (25.3).

Carsley said he would put “his own stamp” on the England squad during his time as interim boss and “freshen it up” with each get-together. He has certainly done that.

He has again turned to ‘England pathway’ players he knows well from his time as Under 21 manager, and even with Cole Palmer and Levi Colwill dropping out, there are still eight players from his Euro 2023 squad which beat Spain 1-0 in the final.

However, this is one of the least experienced squads in recent history, with Harry Kane (100) and Kyle Walker (95) making up almost half of the 400 caps across the entire squad. England’s high-profile withdrawals have 240 caps between them.

England need to win these two matches to earn automatic promotion back to the top level of the Nations League and ensure Tuchel’s first game is not a Nations League play-off rather than the World Cup qualifier he says he has planned for.

Tuchel will not be in Greece and Carsley said the German has had no influence over the squad selection for this match – and that “he is highly respectful” of the job that Carsley and his staff are doing.

Ultimately, Carsley’s lasting impact could be fast-tracking the next generation of England stars quicker than expected.

It all makes for an interesting ‘audition’ for some players in this squad… BBC Sport takes a look.