A bonus famous F365 England ladder as Man Utd players climb and Arsenal stars tumble | OneFootball

What better way to celebrate the end of another January transfer window than with a bonus England Ladder?

Stop trying to think of better ones. There aren’t any.

It’s an admittedly rogue time for us to be attempting a Ladder, with the vital and often missed point being that this isn’t our list but our best guess at the manager’s list. It is inevitably harder to gauge the manager’s current thoughts when you don’t have his very recent actual choices to go on, like we do at standard post-interlull Ladder time.

Yet it does also feel like quite a lot has changed since November for quite a lot of players. Those now clearly obsolete rankings are in brackets below, with the full irrelevant arguments here if you’re that way inclined.

1) Harry Kane (1)

We can rattle through the first few of these nice and quick, because as long as they remain upright and don’t suffer a catastrophic collapse in form they are of no concern.

2) Declan Rice (2)

See? Very easy, this bit.

3) Jordan Pickford (3)

Very, very easy. It will not remain this easy.

4) Reece James (8)

The first significant mover, because James’ absence from the group of nailed-on certainties has never been about ability or suitability but availability. And this season James has already played more Premier League football than any since 21/22, and had more minutes on a Premier League pitch than in the last two campaigns combined.

Midfield versatility always a boon, but for England his main job is clear. He’s the right-back, and it solves an awful, awful lot.

5) Bukayo Saka (5)

Sketchy recent form isn’t ideal but nobody is pretending Tuchel is remotely likely to, by choice, have anyone else on the right side of England’s attack next summer.

6) Elliot Anderson (6)

Hard to think of anyone who in the space of six caps has so commandingly claimed an England starting spot. Has still played every minute of this Premier League season and the re-emergence of your Conor Gallaghers and Kobbie Mainoos adds depth to the midfield argument but they are very much squabbling for squad places behind Anderson at this time.

His passing is very, very good. As illustrated by football analysts Gradient Sports.

Elliot Anderson passing grades thanks to Gradient Sports.

7) Marc Guehi (10)

Ahead of the injured John Stones in the pecking order now, for club and country.

8) Ezri Konsa (12)

If there were an international break happening right now, it would be a Guehi-Konsa defensive pairing for England and there’s a good chance that will still be true in March when there is one and also the summer. Squad certainty either way.

9) Jude Bellingham (7)

Get ready for a lot more chat about his attitude and family and above all his unwillingness to just dance to the media’s tune that makes you want to grind your teeth into powdery stumps next month. Absolutely is not helping himself, though, by having an underwhelming season.

10) Anthony Gordon (9)

Has been Tuchel’s go-to man on the left and we have to assume remains so. Hasn’t dazzled in the Premier League this season, but eye-catching Champions League form doesn’t hurt.

11) Nico O’Reilly (11)

Left-back remains the trickiest position to pin down, because there are lots of options and Tuchel has tried most of them. O’Reilly is the man in possession, still playing regularly for Man City – albeit shuffled into midfield last weekend – and therefore remains cautiously pencilled in.

12) Morgan Rogers (13)

The return to fitness and prominence of Cole Palmer will ask questions of Rogers, but he is for now still at worst Jude Bellingham’s back-up at No. 10 because there is no reason for that not to be so.

13) Dean Henderson (14)

If he stays fit, he stays in. Zero chance he displaces Pickford, zero chance he loses his place in the squad.

14) Jordan Henderson (15)

Has been in and out of the Brentford side in recent weeks, but we’re really not sure that matters given the specific reasons Tuchel likes having Henderson around and his role within the squad. It’s not quite player-coach, but there’s definitely a sense of Henderson existing as a conduit between the players and coaches, while his on-field role is around sorting out the closing minutes of games as a wise head on fresh legs. Doesn’t need to be starting every week for Brentford to stay sharp for that.

15) John Stones (4)

Ended the November break looking like a shoo-in for the XI never mind the squad, but has barely played since due to another frustrating injury.

You’d imagine Tuchel will still be desperately keen to pick him, but there are other experienced options playing a lot more football right now.

16) Marcus Rashford (16)

Gets a decent passing grade for his work at Barcelona, and remains an uncomplicated choice for a tournament squad. Looks more and more like it’s a straight Gordon v Rashford fight for the left-wing starting spot, with both almost certain to be on the plane.

Ball-carrying feels like it might be an issue, mind…

Marcus Rashford grades thanks to Gradient.

17) Cole Palmer (22)

We still had him inside the cut line in November when he had barely played this season. Is playing regularly now, and surely makes a 26-man squad for his big-game minerals alone. Scored in the Euros final and ran the Club World Cup final. You’d be happier looking along an England bench and having him there, wouldn’t you?

18) Dan Burn (21)

Back in the Newcastle team at Liverpool after six weeks out, and we’ll not dwell too much on how that went and consider instead the fact that Tuchel has picked him in every England squad for the last year and the ladder is, as always, our best (if in this particularly instalment even sketchier than normal) guess at his plans rather than our own.

19) Lewis Hall (43)

Returned from injury just before the last international break but too late to be realistically considered for a call-up. But has been quietly and effectively pretty much ever-present for Newcastle since then and that absolutely could and probably should be enough to get him one of the left-back spots. None of the other contenders to join O’Reilly in the squad have been as consistent since November in terms of level or the underrated yet key ability to simply get themselves on the pitch in that position.

20) Ollie Watkins (19)

Feels like this was a particularly bad time to get injured, putting him out of sight and mind in the run-up to the next squad. Most obviously directly hands an opportunity to Tammy Abraham at club level that could yet ask questions at international level while also offering encouragement to the Dominics Calvert-Lewin and Solanke and even Ivan Toney.

21) Phil Foden (20)

Feels very ‘Foden and England’ that he scored six goals in four Premier League games almost immediately after the last international break but hasn’t scored a Premier League goal in his last eight games as we approach the next one. The timing just always seems to be off.

22) Adam Wharton (25)

Adam Wharton remains Adam Wharton, and we love that for him. But we’re not so sure Tuchel really does. He offers such a tantalising point of difference but with Rice and Anderson locked-in starters, Henderson cast as key lieutenant and both Conor Gallagher and Kobbie Mainoo now so visibly back on the scene there is a scramble for midfield spots. We think he still has the edge, for now.

23) Tino Livramento (24)

Ruled out for two months with a hamstring injury on January 14. The international break starts on March 23. It’s sh*tty luck at a sh*tty time for a player who feels like he sits right on the bubble and for whom that luck is most sh*tty. Just the worst possible position to be in: someone who would almost certainly make the squad if fit, but who doesn’t quite have enough heft or credit in the bank to not need to still earn it on the pitch. It’s a good old-fashioned race against time.

If he’s back playing before the break, we suspect Tuchel will go for him over a Spence or a Shaw.

24) James Trafford (26)

We would probably go with Nick Pope, but we think Tuchel sticks with what he knows here. Unless you are yourself James Trafford or Nick Pope, it doesn’t really matter.

25) Kobbie Mainoo (48)

He’s back in the Man United team and thus firmly back in the mix. We reckon there are five squad places for central midfielders. Rice, Anderson and Henderson will be three of them, and Mainoo is now once again a significant part of a conversation also involving your Whartons, Scotts and Gallaghers if not now perhaps the Loftus-Cheeks of this world.

We tentatively lean towards what he did at the Euros counting for a lot with Tuchel, who we suspect has just been waiting/hoping for exactly this kind of extended run in the United side.

26) Jarrod Bowen (27)

No coincidence that his own form has improved in direct relation to West Ham coming back from the dead, and with Noni Madueke struggling for playing time the Bukayo Saka understudy gig does once again seem to be up for grabs.

Tuchel’s selection policy has always been an interesting and we think rather clever balance of rewarding both current club form and previous England form. With this longer gap between international squads, our thinking is he will lean slightly more heavily on the former than latter. If he does, Bowen is definitely ahead.

27) Harry Maguire (44)

Michael Carrick replacing Ruben Amorim has already reshaped Manchester United, but what might it mean for England? Maguire is back playing regularly and knows his way around a summer tournament better than almost any other England player. With Stones a doubt and nobody else beyond Marc Guehi and Ezri Konsa having locked down a squad place, why not Maguire?

We already know from Henderson’s return that Tuchel values and requires members of the playing group with those battle-hardened leadership qualities, and it’s quite a green defensive group if Stones isn’t in it.

28) Noni Madueke (18)

Has always been very good when Tuchel has called upon him, and we know this is a manager for whom that counts for an awful lot. But if you were picking a squad right now on current form it would be extremely hard to justify Madueke over, say, Jarrod Bowen.

29) Eberechi Eze (17)

Scored a hat-trick against Spurs straight after the international break, which was good, but hasn’t scored or assisted a Premier League goal since, which is bad. Simply does not have the England record to remain secure in the squad while becoming as peripheral as he has at club level.

30) Luke Shaw (39)

Every chance, you know. Left-back is the most up-in-the-air position of the lot, and Shaw is playing there again now Man United are free at last of Ruben Amorim’s back-three tyranny. There’s a certain irony in the fact Shaw and Reece James also now appear to be England’s most injury-resistant full-back options, having managed 47 out of a possible 48 Premier League appearances this season between them.

Would bring a wealth of experience to a defence that could use that if it is indeed a perfectly capable but not particularly tournament-hardened Guehi-Konsa central pairing, as well as providing an experienced LCB option in a back three.

31) Djed Spence (23)

Did absolutely nothing wrong when called upon in October but usurped by Nico O’Reilly in November and now as injured as all Spurs players must be. Ability to play both flanks still works in his favour but also now, through no real fault of his own, probably in a position where he needs to play himself back into the 26.

32) Dominic Solanke (38)

Four goals in four games since returning from a frustratingly persistent injury and coming into a genuinely terrible Tottenham team at a horrifically low ebb.

Scoring an outrageous scorpion kick as one of your two goals against Man City in front of the watching England manager is certainly not a bad idea.

What’s interesting about Solanke is, while obviously not approaching Harry Kane’s class, he is probably the closest England have available in terms of all-round playing style. So it could come down to what, exactly, Tuchel is looking for in his Kane back-up: a point of difference, or an inevitably inferior but passable facsimile.

33) Nick Pope (29)

A badly timed injury cost him in November. A goalkeeper who is playing week in, week out for a Champions League club should logically be a better choice as third-choice keeper than someone who is not doing that, but we’re just not sure it’s something Tuchel is going to be spending much time faffing about with this close to tournament time.

34) Jarell Quansah (28)

Played right-back in England’s last qualifier, and ‘back-up right-back’ does look like it might be a position available to a versatile, utility-player sort – whether that’s a full-back who can play either side (a Spence, a Livramento) or a Jarell Quansah/Joe Gomez type who can shuffle across from their preferred centre-back spot.

35) Conor Gallagher (46)

Whether it makes Tuchel more likely to pick you we’re not so sure, but you’re certainly going to get talked about more as a possible England selection if you’re playing in England. Gallagher is now doing so again, and will have done himself no harm at all with that all-action effort against Man City in front of the England coach at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

Is a player Tuchel knows from Chelsea, which we’ve already seen count for something, but also one of the accursed gang whose sole England appearance under the current manager came in the Game We Don’t Like To Talk About against Senegal.

36) Trent Alexander-Arnold (32)

Couldn’t even nail down the right-back spot when he was one of Liverpool’s best and most visible players and Reece James was pretty much always injured. Is not about to do so while he is struggling to get a game for Real Madrid and Reece James is pretty much always available.

In terms of the squad, we still rule nothing out because there is no current compelling back-up right-back and a fresh Alexander-Arnold with a point to prove is a very tempting wildcard in a 26-man group.

The facts are, though, that he hasn’t been part of an England squad since last summer. If he were already in the squad, his Real Madrid struggles might be overlooked; but he’s in the position of trying to force his way in and just isn’t doing enough.

37) Morgan Gibbs-White (30)

Bellingham, Rogers, Palmer is already a difficult pack to burst through for one of the No. 10 spots, and that’s before you consider the likes of Foden or Eze who could play there or elsewhere. Looks like a losing battle at this time.

38) Jack Grealish (33)

Needed to pull up trees at Everton. A Premier League record since the last international break of one goal, two assists, one foot injury, one mysterious Christmas ‘illness’ isn’t really that.

39) Trevoh Chalobah (37)

Still hasn’t played for England since That Senegal Game, but was in the last squad and remains an automatic pick for Chelsea.

Problem for Chalobah that he cannot do anything about is that he may now find himself in a scrap with some enormously experienced big-tournament players for the squad centre-back positions, and Tuchel clearly values that know-how.

40) Dominic Calvert-Lewin (RE)

Were there such a thing as a January international break, then he would have been a shoo-in after scoring seven Premier League goals in six games between November 29 and December 28. But there isn’t so he wasn’t.

And now he’s scored one goal in his last six. Never underestimate the importance of timing. But Watkins’ injury does certainly leave a door potentially ajar for a Calvert-Lewin, Solanke or Toney.