Maguire ‘shocked’ but also ‘understood’ hidden Tuchel message about World Cup place | OneFootball

Harry Maguire somehow ‘understood’ a hidden Thomas Tuchel message in March, while two Arsenal stars in particular are slammed for being happy.

Quite how he read between the lines of Tuchel’s coded communication is unknown.

And Arsenal ‘need to learn there’s a way to win’ – except it’s only two players really, and obviously the young black ones.

Understand to attention

It definitely felt like the England World Cup squad was leaked rather than whispered over the course of Thursday evening, with the first shock being the omission of Harry Maguire.

But according to Ian Ladyman of the Daily Mail, the clever but also ‘shocked and gutted’ Manchester United centre-half had already figured it out a while ago.

Ladyman writes:

He’s a perceptive sod. It really is impressive reading between the lines from Maguire to have heard Tuchel say “I haven’t changed my mind, but I see other players I like to start for us, I see other players ahead with a different profile,” before specifically naming four of them, and to ‘understand’ he is ‘still some way down the queue for a place’.

It does beg the question as to why he is ‘shocked’ to be left out in May, but still.

Tuchel added of Maguire in March: “If I have to name it tomorrow, we have a lot of injuries, he could be in it.” Fair play to Ladyman for sticking his reputation on the line with what Maguire ‘understood’ despite that resounding show of support.

Palm reading

The reaction from The Sun website includes: ‘Tuchel named Cole Palmer world’s second best player before brutal England axe’.

Martin Lipton does indeed believe Palmer to have ‘joined Paul Gascoigne at the top of the list of England’s all-time biggest shock omissions from the World Cup’.

The bloke hasn’t scored or assisted a goal in his last 14 appearances for club and country.

And yes, Tuchel voted him second in the Ballon d’Or vote last year. But if you ‘assumed that was enough to seal the deal’ then it’s worth remembering the England manager has to pick a squad for the 2026 World Cup, not the calendar year of 2025.

The dog’s b******s

Lipton’s Sun colleague Charlie Wyett reckons Tuchel ‘has properly put his b******s on the line with this England squad,’ with anyone who believes this selection to be capable of winning the World Cup needing ‘to get their head tested’.

‘Cole Palmer, Phil Foden, Harry Maguire, Morgan Gibbs-White, Adam Wharton and Levi Colwill are just some of the players missing,’ he writes in pure, unadulterated disbelief.

It is weird, then, that when Wyett named his preferred England XI for the tournament in April, he picked none of those players.

He did also say ‘Bukayo Saka gets in ahead of Noni Madueke – just,’ so should probably nominate himself for any of the upcoming England squad-based head-testing.

He’s just a Saudi-based goal machine

Mediawatch has all the time in the world for the second-mentioning skills of Sun website scribe Chisanga Malata.

Among his finest efforts in covering the England squad are referring to Morgan Gibbs-White as the ‘Nottingham Forest powerhouse’, with Jordan Henderson the doubly-experienced ‘veteran warhorse’ and Ivan Toney a ‘Saudi-based goal machine’.

Also quite enjoying Ollie Watkins as the ‘primary deputy’.

The power of The Sun in the palm of my hand

Behold, the single most inextricably, shamefully The Sun headline ever committed to print:

1) No.

2) Will we as a society ever get over what happened in Baden-Baden?

A load of Arse

It isn’t all about England. Jeremy Cross of the Daily Star knows there is still plenty of mileage in denigrating Arsenal’s title win.

‘Arsenal need to learn there’s a way to win – It involves showing class and dignity’ is the headline to a piece the quality of which does not improve in the copy.

‘Given how long it has taken Arsenal to win something significant, the celebrations are almost understandable,’ for example, is a phenomenally nonsensical opening paragraph. It’s a chef’s kiss of an ‘almost’.

It is all a fairly obvious if rudimentary wind-up piece, with the dismissive criticism of the misspelled ‘Miles Lewis-Skelly’ beyond parody. The teenager ‘started just four league games this season’ and still had the gall to celebrate winning the Premier League title. There aren’t enough pearls in the world to clutch.

Bukayo Saka did the same during the ‘crude and crass’ celebrations, in which some Arsenal players revelled in proving their great many doubters wrong.

A reminder of Saka’s ‘crude and crass’ reaction, by the way: “Let me tell you something. Twenty two years. Twenty two years. There was laughing, there was joking. They’re not laughing any more. Look, it’s going to be shining. It is going to be shining bright.”

Disgusting.

Mediawatch won’t delve too far into Cross writing that ‘if some people do dislike Arsenal, behaviour like this might just be part of the reason why,’ despite the only two cited examples of such unforgivable ‘behaviour’ (celebrating winning a league title) coming from two young black men. Those optics are uncomfortable and unfortunate at best.

But this is elite-level goalpost-moving:

Can’t wait for Arsenal to be accused of celebrating like they’ve won multiple titles.