Two forgotten Manchester United players featured in England’s last XI which faced France

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England are preparing for a crunch World Cup quarter-final clash against Kylian Mbappe’s France on Saturday night.

There will be three Manchester United players involved for England; Harry Maguire, Luke Shaw and Marcus Rashford, with Raphael Varane set to line up for France.

It is five years since England last faced France, losing 3-2 in a friendly at the Stade France.

The England side has changed considerably since then, with just five players in the starting XI in 2017 a part of the 2022 World Cup squad.

England’s last XI against France

There were two current Manchester United players who lined up for England in 2017 – both of who are now very forgotten men.

These are goalkeeper Tom Heaton, winning one of his three England caps, and defender Phil Jones.

Heaton was playing for Burnley at the time, while Phil Jones has spent the past 11 years as a Manchester United player.

United re-signed Heaton in the summer of 2021 as a back-up goalkeeper. He has played only one competitive game for the club, a 22-minute cameo against Young Boys.

He is currently third choice at United, and now 36-years-old, his days of playing for England are long behind him.

In fact this 3-2 defeat against France proved to be Tom Heaton’s final ever game for England, with Gareth Southgate declining to pick him subsequently.

Heaton played the first 45 minutes in Paris, conceding two first half goals, before being replaced by Jack Butland.

BBC Sport described his performance as a ‘painful night’ for him individually, with the two goals he conceded a result of shots he parried into the paths of Samuel Umtiti and Djibril Sidibe – while noting he was not provided with adequate cover by his defenders.

Phil Jones was one of those defenders, lining up in back three with John Stones and Gary Cahill. He played 82 minutes, going up against a teenage Kylian Mbappe, who was still a Monaco player at the time.

Jones went onto be part of the England squad which went to World Cup 2018, but his career has been derailed by injury since.

He has not even trained with United’s first team since June, and the club did not even mention him in the update on player fitness this past week, concerning who is and isn’t travelling to Spain for the winter training camp.