RIGA — Thomas Tuchel’s annual review will be a straightforward one. Since taking over as England boss in January, he has won every competitive game without conceding a goal and qualified for the World Cup with two games to spare.
A 3-1 reverse to a fired-up Senegal in a friendly in Nottingham is the only defeat on his record, and the only other blot on his copybook is a minor feud with the England fans over their lack of noise at Wembley.
Appointed with 18 months to prepare a squad for the World Cup, Tuchel has formed opinions on players quickly and shown a real penchant for continuity: he made four changes against Wales from the win over Serbia, but all were enforced by injury.
For this latest Latvia victory, he swapped injured Ollie Watkins for the returning Harry Kane and rested Marc Guehi on the grounds of having played a lot of minutes.
As Tuchel keeps saying, “no one has done anything wrong”, so how can he change a winning formula?
England’s big losers from this international break
Bellingham is running out of time to win back his England place (Photo: Reuters)Only two positions really seem to be up for grabs, with the door remaining open for Jude Bellingham to win back his place, and left-back, where Myles Lewis-Skelly is clearly the preferred option but who will be hard to pick if he does not get more minutes for Arsenal.
Tuchel’s general selection policy of picking the same team and squad where possible means that England‘s biggest losers from this latest international break are, inevitably, those who were not involved.
Jude Bellingham
The Real Madrid midfielder is becoming England’s biggest enigma. Undoubtedly a man for a big moment (see Euro 2024, three times), Bellingham has fallen a little out of favour under Tuchel, who has made it clear he wants England to be the best team they can be, not a collection of the best individuals.
Having started the German’s first three games in charge, he is yet to do so again – not helped by a shoulder injury that ruled him out of October’s games and has limited his appearances for Real.
The 22-year-old was part of Gareth Southgate’s “leadership group” and is still well respected within the England dressing room, which would be poorer for not having him as part of it. But Morgan Rogers, starter against Wales and Latvia, has played 463 minutes for England under Tuchel, mostly in Bellingham’s preferred No 10 role.
Bellingham is expected to make a return to the squad in November, and will have a point to prove – but it remains very hard to imagine a player of his ability not forcing his way back into the XI before the World Cup. And if he does, where does that leave the injured Cole Palmer? It may be the Chelsea No 10 has to reprise his role as an impact player off the bench.
Dean Henderson
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Everyone says one feature of this England squad is how much every member, starting or not, wants to be part of the collective success. That must be tough for Henderson, who has started two games in five years.
In total, he has now spent 39.5 England games watching from the substitutes bench. (Once during Covid he was subbed on at half-time.)
Jordan Pickford is clearly England’s best goalkeeper and now has 80 caps, but to go into a World Cup with your clear No 2 goalkeeper so inexperienced at the highest level – even though he was brilliant in the FA Cup final – feels irresponsible.
Ollie Watkins
Tuchel is keen to have two players competing for every position, but in the case of Harry Kane, if he is fit, he starts. The captain missed the Wales game through injury and might only have come off the bench against Latvia had Watkins not been brutally unlucky at Wembley.
The Aston Villa forward collided with a goalpost while missing an “easy second goal for him”, and ended up going home because of the injury.
Watkins is currently the only understudy to Kane – other forwards Jarrod Bowen and Marcus Rashford more often play wide for England – but it would be interesting to see if any other striker can force their way into the conversation over the next seven months.
Phil Foden
Manchester City forward Phil Foden is another who only a year ago was among the first names on the team sheet. He started every game at Euro 2024, but ended the tournament without a goal or an assist. He has missed the last three England squads and only one because of injury.
He has started to rediscover his best form at City, where he lost his place in the team at the end of last season, but Tuchel’s insistence on continuity is counting against him.
Like Bellingham, you would expect him to get an opportunity against Albania and Serbia next month, but it is harder to see who he can displace given the rapid rise of Elliot Anderson. The Nottingham Forest midfielder’s neat work at the base of midfield has freed up Declan Rice to move further forward, a balance the manager clearly prefers.
His chance of getting in on one of the flanks is diminished by Anthony Gordon’s accession too: the winger’s work out of possession is as good as it is with the ball, and his pace on the counter-attack complements England’s forward line.
Jarrell Quansah
It’s pretty clear who Tuchel sees as his centre-backs. In eight games he has used six different partnerships, but the Senegal outlier aside, he has only started four players there: John Stones, Marc Guehi, Ezri Konsa and Dan Burn.
It was a surprise to see Konsa preferred to Guehi in Latvia, Tuchel insisting the Crystal Palace defender needed a rest, but the Villa man has played more minutes under this manager than all bar Pickford and Kane, and showed off his remarkable pace last night by recovering to make a brilliant last-ditch tackle in his own box.
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Quansah is clearly highly rated at St George’s Park, having now been called up by Southgate, Tuchel and Lee Carsley. Incredibly though, the former Liverpool defender has been in five squads now but is yet to make his debut, this time pulling out mid-camp due to a knee injury.
Only injury to one of the other four could now really get him on the plane to the USA, but it would be nice to see him make his debut before then.
My predicted England XI for the World Cup
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