Four Tottenham Hotspur players make England Under-21 team

Steven Caulker, Adam Smith, Danny Rose and Andros Townsend have all been selected by Stuart Pearce to represent England at the UEFA Under-21 Championships in Israel this summer. The tournament gets underway on June 5, with England facing Italy in their opening game.

England qualified for the tournament by defeating Serbia in a playoff that featured a controversial post-match skirmish with fans racially abusing fans. Caulker and Rose were among those victimized and faced potential suspensions for their actions, despite their reacting fairly reasonably to being racially abused.

Rose should contend with Luke Shaw for a starting spot, and the same goes with Smith and Andre Wisdom. Neither fullback spot looks locked down at the moment. As for central defense, it would be very surprising if Caulker was not first choice.

Townsend has been spectacular in his loan spell at Queens Park Rangers and should have a chance to play quite a bit, but will have stiff competition on the wings from Thomas Ince, Wilfried Zaha and Callum McManaman. The wide spots are the clear strength of this England team, and with a very weak corps of center forwards at their disposal, they'll depend on these four to score their goals.

Harry Kane might have had an outside shot of getting into the team given the lack of forward depth, but didn't do quite enough at Leicester to pass Marvin Sordell or Connor Wickham in the pecking order. Tom Carroll has lost out on a place to a pair of Chelsea players who have spent time as key starters in the Championship, Josh McEachran and Nathaniel Chalobah, as well as Under-21 stalwart Jordan Henderson.

England also qualified for the U-20 World Cup, which starts on June 21. Kane and Carroll are very likely to play in that tournament, while Ryan Mason Dean Parrett have played for the Under-20 team as well. Ryan Fredericks, Shaq Coulthirst, Jake Nicholson, Zeki Fryers and Alex Pritchard could also be in the mix for spots on that team.