England Senior National Team General Discussion Thread

According to the Times UEFA have rejected plans to move qualifying to the CL style Swiss model but might still move towards the Nations League model used in the Women’s international game.

 

Makes our results even more impressive

 

Newcastle are pushing to sign James Trafford, 23, in January, with the English goalkeeper struggling for game time at Manchester City. (Teamtalk)

Wayne Rooney has told Jack Grealish to 'book his holiday' as he won’t be making Thomas Tuchel’s 2026 World Cup squad - BBC Sport

Premier League chief executive Richard Masters has cautioned that domestic football is at risk due to the favouring of international matches - The Independent

 

5 years ago. It would have been insane not to have players of the quality of Grealish and maddison in the squad. Just shows how far we've come in producing these number 10s

 

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Well, 5 years ago Maddison wasn't in the squad! And at no point has really been anything but on the very periphery.

I think its the central midfield depth that has really kicked on. Our last squad selection in 2023 had Rice, Gallagher, Phillips, Henderson, and TAA as its deep central midfield options.

 

I'd rather see Trafford go to Chelsea than Newcastle to be honest, assuming they're interested.

 

No way will Trafford go to Newcastle to play number 2 to Pope when he's already number 2 to donnarumma

 

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He'd start ahead of Pope.

 

Pope has been good this season

 

He's been pretty poor, especially of late. Made some blundering errors.

 

Maybe I'm confusing it with his early season form

 

Kane taking the press conference so presumably starting tomorrow (Througn if there is ever a player who’d do the press conference and not then start it would be Kane)

 

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Ezri Konsa has withdrawn with a tight calf.

Tuchel seems to be suggesting Rice and/or Anderson might not play tomorrow for medical reasons.

Full Tuchel quotes

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Thomas Tuchel on what he has learned since his first game in charge of England against Albania in March: "I learned a lot about the job, I had to learn the job because it's very different from club football. All of us grew together and we started with very good results in the first camp and with solid, serious performances. Two good wins, two clean sheets. I learned a lot about football because my assistants keep me on my toes with new information, new strategies, new ways to play, new data about physical input and output and that is good. They are on top of the game as coaches to influence our players.

"We want to win again, tomorrow we face an Albania side that is difficult to break down. In qualification they only conceded three goals in qualifying, two from us and one more. It's difficult to score against them."


Thomas Tuchel on whether he thought Albania would be second after qualifying draw made: "I saw that Albania and Serbia are very passionate about their football teams, they have always been traditionally very talented players who play in the biggest leagues so we straight away thought they were the two teams to beat.

"Now we see Albania are well deserved to be second place. It is very difficult to create and convert chances against them. I think we will dominate the game, I think and hope, but ball possession alone will not do it so we need to control the game and be aware to control the counter-attacks.

"We need to try and transform ball possession into chances. If we have them we are normally clinical enough to score. But we expect a difficult match."

More from Thomas Tuchel on what he expects from Albania and if he thought they would finish second in the group: "I thought Albania and Serbia are both very passionate about their football teams, they have always been very talented traditionally with players in the biggest leagues. We thought these are the two teams to beat.

"Now we see that Albaina deserved the second place. It's difficult to create chances and convert chances against them. They are well-trained and well-drilled. I think we will dominate the game, but ball possession alone will not do it. We need to control the game but control the counter attacks before they create chances. We need good counter-pressing and just ball possession is not enough. We need to transform that into chances and if we have chances we are normally clinical. We expect a difficult match."

Thomas Tuchel on Albania's Armando Broja, who he worked with at Chelsea: "We know a clean sheet can always break in football. I know him very well because he was my player at Chelsea. He plays regularly for Albania and mostly on the right wing, where we expect him tomorrow. He brings directness and speed, he is dagerous because he always thinks about scoring. I hope we have solutions to defend him.

"In general I hope the hunger for us to win and achieve something is bigger than the fear of losing and fear of losing a clean sheet. We should not focus on that too much, we should be more excited about the next possibility to show our quality."


Thomas Tuchel on if his message was to try and remain unbeaten: "I didn't speak a single word about that. We made sure we had yesterday the training session that we had, the quality and mentality of the guys who didn't play was the highest level which was pure pleasure to watch and be part of. It showed me again we are building and growing in the right way. Everyone is ready to play, everyone is desperate to start. The competition is still on, the hunger is on to be on the pitch tomorrow.

"Today we prepared for Albania and we prepared our offensive solutions, spoke about the defensive structure of Albania like always and had a tactical training session. Everything we talk about is about the process and about the things we can influence. We need to get the foundation right to have a chance to have these records. Just by thinking about it or by talking about it nothing will change, we need to deliver tomorrow again. The feeling and the trust is there because I witnessed this in camp. I trust my players to perform again tomorrow."


More from Thomas Tuchel on Albania: "They are very strong in counter-attacks, they are very flexible in the midfield three, they change a lot of positions which will be quite demanding to defend against. They like to attack down the right with a lot of speed and dangerous crosses. They are a full package.

"I just hope the players are able to adapt and answer the questions the opponent asks us."


Thomas Tuchel on Marc Guehi and Ezri Konsa's absence: "It's just what it is. We all need to adapt. We always would like to have everyone in camp. We were sad for Marc, he tried everything to be with us for the second match but very quickly we realised there was no chance he can be with us on the pitch. He wanted to be with us at Wembley and support the team which we like. It shows the determination He feels a strong part of this group which he is.

"Now Ezri is out we have to find solutions. It is what it is and we have strong enough players to have another good performance. The structure is there to make it easier now to compensate. The players are very aware of how we want to play.

"It is also a chance to maybe have fresh legs and reward the training sessions and performances on the pitch. Let's see. The last decision is not made but we will not use it as an excuse. Someone else will step up I am very sure."


Thomas Tuchel on Declan Rice and Elliot Anderson being his main midfield pairing: "Elliot and Declan are at the moment ahead in midfield. They are a very good pair and complement each other very well. They are performing at the highest level for club and country. Biggest complement to both of them.

"We took Declan out [of the last match] after 65 minutes to have the chance to play again, Elliot played 90 minutes and it is his first season to play international games as well as for Nottingham Forest, he is a key player there too.

"We will wait for information from the medical department and decide tomorrow."

 

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Tuchel confirms he will take someone like Watkins, Delap or Welbeck to the World Cup.

 

Dear Arsenal fans on Twitter,

1) You fail to understand/realise how special and important putting on the shirt of your country is for a player- in any match. There is no such thing as a “meaningless game” in international football.

2) If you don’t want your key players to get injuries, maybe Arteta should/should’ve rotated better over the last three years. Blaming international football for your players picking up knocks when your core stars (Saliba, Gabriel, Saka, Rice) etc literally start 95% of games in every competition and hardly ever come off, is rank hypocrisy and double standards.

It always makes me laugh on point 1 particularly, the entitlement of some(not all of course) fans of big six clubs. I guarantee if any of them had been good enough to make it as professional footballers, and even more so, had been good enough to get game time for their national sides, particularly the bigger nations they would be wanting to play every single minute they can.

These people don’t appreciate how short a career football is and how good you have to be, as well as how incredibly hard you have to work to earn the right to play for countries like England, Brazil, France etc.

It speaks to the grim nature of football where players are seen by too many as mere pawns and/or commodities, rather than human beings with emotions, dreams, ambitions etc. No YankeeGunner, Rice and Saka will not sacrifice the honour of playing a match for England just so they can be ready for Brighton next week. Their ambitions and desires are more important than yours, hope this helps.

 

Don't want to see Dan burn tomorrow. I'd like to see Quansah given a chance

 

Particularly if it is Rice who needs a medical check and Henderson has to replace him.

 

They are so unbearable. Chelsea fans also getting quite vocal about Reece James at the moment.

 

England play around 10 games a year. Arsenal Chelsea City Liverpool etc play around 50. Clubs are reserved for overplaying players. They were talking on talksport about saka being rested when he doesn't play for arsenal till a week on Sunday. That there was no reason to rest him

 

These fans can’t accept that winning the WC, or Euro’s> any club trophy. It hurts them, bless em.