You’ve made your point, Thomas Tuchel; now pick a proper England squad | OneFootball

Having spent large swathes of the last international break arguing that Thomas Tuchel sticking to his principles and showing faith in the players who excelled in September was perfectly reasonable, we would like to spend large swathes of this international break looking at the England squad and quietly thinking that the 2026 World Cup will not be a disaster, thank you.

Despite the media’s obsession with the ‘Jude Bellingham circus’, Tuchel also left out Adam Wharton, Conor Gallagher, Curtis Jones, Phil Foden and Jack Grealish – and suggested he would also have omitted Bukayo Saka had Noni Madueke not got injured.

Frankly, we wish he had; not because we do not believe Saka is a brilliant footballer, but because it might have calmed the Bellingham noise.

Those players have varying claims to be in an England World Cup squad, with Bellingham’s clearly the greatest claim of all. Not all will be included by Tuchel for the final World Cup qualifiers against Serbia and Albania, but all should now be considered equally with those on the bench or the stands for that 5-0 win in Belgrade.

There is no justification for including Ruben Loftus-Cheek just because he was in the squad for Serbia or even Myles Lewis-Skelly because he played against Andorra a few days before. The point has been made. The debts have been repaid.

This period has seen Elliot Anderson (placed impossibly sixth in our last World Cup ladder), Djed Spence, Madueke, Anthony Gordon and Morgan Rogers emerge or significantly advance their England prospects so there has been real joy to be found in this period of experimentation.

But let’s not pretend that this squad would not be improved by the inclusion of Bellingham, probably Foden and possibly Wharton.

“I’d love to be (picked),” said Bellingham this week. “But it’s not my call. I think you know whose call it is.”

It is absolutely Tuchel’s call and we hope that stubbornness does not get in the way of ambition. We suspect that the inevitable shower of sh*t that will rain on his head if he omits Bellingham will persuade him to name his strongest squad. If no Bellingham, this time there will have to be a tricky explanation that addresses issues other than football.

Whatever the difficulties of managing certain personalities, it’s his job as a coach to adapt. We have just had a week of headlines about Mary Earps and Hannah Hampton in which nobody cares about the latter’s problematic behaviour because she helped England win another major tournament. And nobody will remember Bellingham shouting at his teammates if he runs the show to send England into the World Cup final.

And with the greatest respect to Rogers, that does feel more like a Bellingham thing to do.