England: Thomas Tuchel explains Cole Palmer and Phil Foden World Cup snubs | OneFootball

Chelsea and Man City stars have paid the price for underwhelming seasons

Thomas Tuchel has explained why the likes of Cole Palmer, Phil Foden and Morgan Gibbs-White were left out of his England squad for the World Cup.

The trio of attacking midfielders will all be watching the tournament from, along with the likes of Trent Alexander-Arnold.

Foden and Palmer were the most high-profile absentees but have had below-par club campaigns with Manchester City and Chelsea respectively, plus face tough competition in their area of the field. Real Madrid right-back Alexander-Arnold was another bold omission, albeit a more predictable one having not won a cap since last summer.

"It was a lot of phone calls over the last three days, of course a lot of thinking, a lot of deciding, a lot of difficult decisions to make,” Tuchel said on England’s official media channels.

"In one week, we're on the plane and I can’t wait to be on the plan and actually be a coach."

“It was difficult phone calls as I respect them as players and personalities. All of them deserved a call-up from this list of 55, and to reduce [to 26] was painfully difficult.

“I felt the emotion in the phone calls. I called all players with us and wanted to show appreciation and respect. A lot deserve to be with us but we went back to the evidence we had in September, October, we had very few changes in November. We had younger players with hunger and excitement, and it was a good mix of young and old that brought the best out of them.

“That is why we relied heavily on the group in those three camps. It was also a positional thing, not taking five No10s and playing them out of position. Who would that help? The player? Ourselves? I don’t think so.”