‘Who would that help?’ – Tuchel explains Foden, Palmer snub in England squad announcement | OneFootball

England head coach Thomas Tuchel insists he was not willing to take Phil Foden and Cole Palmer to play them out of position at the World Cup.

The Three Lions squad was named by the German earlier on Friday after a number of journalists had already revealed the majority of the squad on Thursday evening.

Not including both Manchester City attacking midfielder Foden and Chelsea star Cole Palmer in the England squad came as a surprise to many, with both players capable of producing moments of magic, despite not hitting their best form this season.

But Tuchel insisted in a press conference on Friday that he didn’t want to take “five No 10s” and play some of them out of position.

Tuchel told reporters: “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?”

Tuchel insists it was about making the “right call” for England and not the easy one as he selected his 26-man squad to travel to the tournament in the USA, Canada and Mexico.

He added: “It was not easy but I think it was the right call.

“It is a mix of all of that. What did they do for us? Does a player bring a different profile? It was heavily influential what they did for us and then we watched and monitored. It is never out of the picture what you do for the club but what they did in camp [is important].

“After the match we played in Serbia the players didn’t see that we saw five or six players did running in the dark on low quality pitches. They didn’t complain or whisper or create their own group. And they didn’t know we saw that.”

Tuchel: With every phone call I was more sure we took the right choices

Explaining that he spoke to all the players to give them the good or bad news, Tuchel continued: “There were some amazing phone calls and feedback. The level of emotion and what it means to get the call, even those who have been to tournaments before, was nice to see. With every phone call I was more sure we took the right choices.

“This is hopefully the best group. From day one we said we were building the best group, not necessarily the most talented. The group is the main focus and that was the headline in selecting this group. If we want to reach what we want to reach that was the thinking behind it.”

Speaking about tactics ahead of the World Cup, Tuchel said: “It’s never out the window, you could see in the selection we have three goalkeepers, nine defenders, seven midfielders for three positions, so the idea is to stick with the formation. Adaptation is the defensive approach as there are so many formations form the other side. We can go into a high press, it depends on the opponent.

“Will we change our structure? I think we will try to stick with what makes us strong. We have the key players in the positions they can influence. The target is to reconnect with our values in Florida and then prepare in Kansas, not tweaking too much tactically.”