It is that time of year again. The hawthorns are in bloom. The cow parsley is high. Men in shorts have already begun to gather cautiously in public places, puffing their chests, milk-white ankles proudly bared. And by Wednesday lunchtime mid-summer will make an early appearance with the announcement of an England squad for the World Cup in Russia.

It is generally assumed Gareth Southgate is getting his selection for Russia 2018 out there a little early for the simple reason the squad basically picks itself. In the best possible sense this has become the most managed, carefully pondered England era, with no place for the last-second celebrity metatarsal dash, the drama of the Hoddle-style hotel squad countdown or any kind of Crouchie-doing-the-robot for Prince William triumphalism.

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Even now some insist on calling Southgate an FA man, a stuffed blazer there to manage by committee and shore up his own position. This is presumably a kind of prejudice based on his lack of star wattage, a route taken into the job via the youth teams that would in any other country seem entirely logical.

To others Southgate may still seem a little nice, coming across in his first year in the job like the kind of soulfully doomed supply teacher who tries to engage with the kids by talking to them about their feelings, but who will inevitably get home and discover his briefcase has been filled with custard and someone has written “div” in chalk on the back of his jacket.

This is to misjudge him. In reality Southgate is a reformer in the most low-key, quietly English tradition. The two best parts of his time in the England job have been his refreshingly brusque approach to the selection of celebrity or big-club players who are either over the hill or unfit; and secondly the intellectual rigour to pursue a system and a set of tactics to the exclusion of most other considerations.

It is to be hoped Southgate’s first tournament squad can reflect these strengths. This is not the moment for turning back as so many have in the past. As recently as the buildup to the last European Championship Roy Hodgson embarked on a series of bold friendly international experiments before losing his nerve at the last and reinserting Wayne Rooney into the centre of his young England team like a teeth‑sticking deep-fried jam doughnut plonked into the middle of a light rocket salad.

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The player pool may be shallow. Southgate himself may have predicted a no-shocks selection but there is still time to make a statement on the details. There are three ways Southgate can go when the squad offers a choice. He can pick a form player; he can pick a faithful name from a well-known club; or he can pick a young player with the capacity to put into play his distinctive vision of the passing game, that high-energy patience football that someone somewhere has decided is the English footballing DNA.

Generally England managers have gone with the well-known names. Hence a succession of interminable, largely inconsequential tournament careers for middling players from A‑list clubs.

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In practice this is the difference between picking Danny Welbeck or Ademola Lookman in attack; between picking Trent Alexander‑Arnold or Chris Smalling as a defender (with Kyle Walker as a right-sided centre-back making this a reasonable toss-up).

Neither of these choices is likely to have any lasting effect on the destiny of the 2018 Fifa World Cup. But the look and feel of an England squad, the sense of social mobility, of some kind of shared purpose to the squad, rests on staying true to principles Southgate has introduced.

These have been simple and refreshing. Do not pick players who are not fully fit. Do not pick players who are too old or too slow. Do not pick players who cannot actually pass the ball, who receive possession in the traditional state of panic, as though the ball is a terrible source of shame, the severed head tossed into your lap by some passing Colonel Kurtz to be juggled on your knee and then hurled away with a sneeze of tears.

Southgate’s style demands an easy facility playing the ball out from the back. Hence the absence of Smalling this year, a fine footballer who has made the most of his talents but who was hardly renowned as a silky ball-player even in his Maidstone United days.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Trent Alexander-Arnold of Liverpool. Photograph: Andrew Powell/Liverpool FC via Getty Images

Any marginal call at defence or goalkeeper should be decided in similar footballing fashion. Joe Hart may be a great tourist but, if he is not playing for West Ham and is poor with the ball at his feet, it is hard to see a convincing reason for picking him ahead of Nick Pope.

Similarly Jack Wilshere may have a fine passing range but he lacks the strength or mobility to keep that high-tick England midfield going, a place where Southgate needs fit, powerful runners.

Ruben Loftus -Cheek also has his issues with stamina. But he is a modern, powerful footballer who offers the ability to ghost past an opponent in the clinches. Similarly the athletic Alexander‑Arnold must surely go to Russia having made it to Kiev with Liverpool, where he may even play in midfield given the power of Real Madrid’s left flank.

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One other suggestion: Ryan Sessegnon has played a full season in a patient, technically skilled Fulham team and has further picked up the Southgate vibes in the England Under-21s. The 17‑year‑old could have been an excellent surprise pick.

Beyond this there is a feeling that any kind of change is a good change. The lack of churn in successive squads has been a factor in the lassitude around England and tournament football. As it stands England’s 2018 World Cup squad could contain nine members of the Brazil 2014 lot that exited the tournament in six days; and a massive 16 members of the Euro 2016 squad who exited over 90 minutes of public disintegration against Iceland in Nice, a day when England hated the ball, hated the grass, hated their own feet.

Under Southgate England do at least get the point that international football is a test of systems, that it is necessary to stick to some kind of blueprint for how you want your football to look and feel rather than simply finagling together the usual odd-lot of star players and injured parts and hoping passion and pride and being England will make the difference.

Southgate is limited in his choices. But he can make a statement by trimming the edges the right way, by selecting without favour and by refusing to blink at the last when his own vision of steady, high-energy passing football is finally close to the main stage.