Arsenal stars join England squad in Florida ahead of World Cup | OneFootball

Thomas Tuchel now has since full squad available ahead of second warm-up friendly

Arsenal stars Bukayo Saka, Declan Rice, Eberechi Eze and Noni Madueke has joined up with the England squad following their Champions League final defeat.

The foursome were given extended leave due to their clash with Paris Saint-Germain in Budapest six days after the end of the Premier League season.

But for Saka, Rice, Eze and Madueke, it is now full focus on England, who got their World Cup preparations firmly underway with a 1-0 win over New Zealand in Tampa on Saturday, which saw captain Harry Kane score the only goal.

Tuchel named a different team in each half of Saturday’s friendly against New Zealand as part of groundwork that continues with Wednesday’s final warm-up friendly against Costa Rica in Orlando.

Kane said after scoring his 79th England goal: “I think it’s important always as a striker. You know what I’m like. I want to be on the scoresheet as much as possible.

“Obviously I knew I was only playing 45 minutes today, so to get kind of it in stoppage-time of the first half was a nicer feeling than if it went 0-0.

“But, look, we’re here for preparation, we’re here for getting fitness, dealing with the heat, dealing with these type of pitches, so ultimately it’s another day done and we look forward to another friendly game in a few days.”

Head coach Thomas Tuchel liked more of what he saw from the second half having been frustrated by some of the players’ earlier “freestyle” first-half approach.

“To put it in context, a lot of our players played the last time together in November, so it’s half a year ago

Thomas Tuchel

“I’m OK with it,” England boss Tuchel said after the 1-0 win. “I’m not super happy about it. I liked the second half more than the first half.

“I think we had more bite in the second half, were more aggressive on and off the ball, created a bit more. Some good half chances and some good penetrations into the box.

He continued: “The first half we were out of positions and it was a bit too much freestyle.

“That slowed our game down and made it difficult for counter-press because we were not in the positions that we wanted to be when we started attacking, so that’s basically the story of the match.

“To put it in context, a lot of our players played the last time together in November, so it’s half a year ago.

“We have four training sessions together and we mixed the team up completely, so we never played before in these combinations and formation to give everyone 45 minutes.

“Then you have the conditions, the pitch, it can look like this.”

England face Costa Rica on Wednesday in their final World Cup warm-up friendly.