Should Tuchel and England block Manchester City from signing Elliot Anderson before he is ‘dropped’?

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·26 giugno 2026

Should Tuchel and England block Manchester City from signing Elliot Anderson before he is ‘dropped’?

Manchester City have agreed a fee to sign Elliot Anderson from Nottingham Forest, but England have been told to block his medical.

The confusion over whether Manchester City are paying £130m or £116m or everything in a fixed sum or as part of a financial package with potential add-ons has been great fun.

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But really it should absolutely not be happening while England are at the World Cup because that is despicable and something that definitely never used to happen back in our day.

What the Ell?

There is some degree of consternation at Manchester City agreeing a record fee to sign Elliot Anderson, but fair play to Dean Scoggins and Sir Alex Ferguson’s friend, Shaun Custis of The Sun for finding one of the more unnecessary hills to ever die on.

As part of The Sun’s new show, Proper Football Daily, the pair weighed in on the timing of the deal. A headline of ‘Anderson transfer WRONG on England duty’ does not disappoint.

“I’m pretty annoyed, to be honest,” said Head of Sport, Scoggins.

“We talked about Pedro Porro and Marc Cucurella, who shouldn’t be discussing contracts and moves while at a World Cup. And now we’ve got an England player doing it probably, possibly, on the eve of our third World Cup game, and he shouldn’t be doing it, it shouldn’t be happening.”

Think England should probably be alright against Panama even with the definitely real setback of…one of their players transferring for £116m.

Those personal terms were agreed a while ago, fella. Not sure Manchester City and Nottingham Forest holding talks over a fee during the tournament really impacts anything or anyone all that much.

But wait…

“And there’s even discussions that he’s going to have a medical in New York at some point over this weekend,” an increasingly exasperated Scoggins adds.

A f**king medical?! During a World Cup? In a city England are playing their next game in? ‘Disgrace’ doesn’t even nearly cover it. This is a global scandal.

Scoggins powers through his understandable fury…

“We think it’s because Manchester City are the owners of New York City FC, and I’m just not happy about it. I think, you know, they can use their facilities, fine, while they’re here. But the England player should be concentrating on the England World Cup, not his next move.”

It does feel like Anderson can probably be trusted to focus on preparing for Panama while simultaneously coughing for a doctor and running with a few wires attached to him for a bit on a day England aren’t actually playing.

If anything, it might provide decent downtime and an opportunity to take his mind off what a hilarious mess England are defensively.

“Deano’s right actually,” director of sport (love that – is he in charge of selling homegrown writers for pure profit?) Custis weighs in. “Back in the day it wouldn’t even have been entertained. You would not be able to discuss transfers while you’re on World Cup duty. It would be ‘do it before you leave, or do it afterwards, never during’.”

Again, the news is that Manchester City and Nottingham Forest have agreed a fee. Personal terms were reported to have been sorted a while ago. Anderson’s not packed in training to go and talk on the phone to Enzo Maresca.

And that “back in the day” stuff is glorious nonsense. It seems a bit daft to even point out the contradictory examples but a cursory search shows Manchester United signed Fred during the 2018 World Cup, Chelsea signed Cesc Fabregas during the 2014 World Cup and Manchester City signed David Silva during the 2010 World Cup.

It quite obviously has always been A Thing.

“The world’s changed, it’s moved on, people seem to be allowed to do it now.”

A reminder that he’s talking about a footballer moving between clubs during a World Cup, rather than lamenting the woke collapse of some archaic social construct.

In wades Scoggins again…

“But it shouldn’t be happening and I hope we aren’t talking about it in three days’ time, saying he’s had a terrible game against Panama, he’s going to be dropped for a knock-out game, and it’s because this deal has got in his head. We shouldn’t be talking about it now. It shouldn’t be happening at a World Cup.”

You’ve got to admire the impotent, incandescent fury of a man building up a scenario in his head whereby someone has a drop-worthy nightmare of a performance against Panama purely because he’s preoccupied with how to properly tactically foul in front of Rodri.

“I don’t think Thomas Tuchel’s gonna be too happy about it.”

Tuchel is categorically not bothered and made that publicly clear a couple of weeks ago when he said Anderson “seems not affected”, that there are “no distractions” and “full commitment”, and that “in reality, nothing changes, he just changes the club and that’s the rules of the game”.

He certainly sounds fine with it all.

Then comes the pièce de résistance from Scoggins:

“I hope we’re standing here tomorrow where England have said, ‘You cannot have your medical during it, we’re not releasing you for the medical. I hope that’s the case. They should. They’re on international duty, so international duty it is. Not, ‘I’ll have a day off and go and have a medical to move clubs’.”

Because blocking the transfer altogether is definitely the best, most sensible course of action if you’re concerned about Anderson’s mental state.

At least we already know the really quite bizarre narrative which will be used if Anderson doesn’t drop a man-of-the-match display against Panama.