Wembley, May 22. The Beatles on the speakers. Palmer not in it. Foden not in it. Maguire on social media saying shocked and gutted before Tuchel had even finished reading the names out.
The omissions were the story for about four hours. Then people started looking more carefully at who was actually in the squad and the conversation shifted.
Palmer and Foden being left out at least has an explanation. Tuchel watched them in March and decided their defensive contribution does not fit what he needs. You can disagree with that call but you understand the logic. The five names below are harder to explain and Tuchel has not put a great deal of effort into explaining them.
1. IVAN TONEY
He plays for Al-Ahli in Saudi Arabia. He has not started a Premier League game since January 2024. England are going to the World Cup in North America and Harry Kane is going with them and Ollie Watkins is going with them and Ivan Toney is also going with them.
Tuchel’s thinking, pieced together from what he has said publicly, is that Toney provides a physical option off the bench that Kane and Watkins do not provide in exactly the same way. Hold-up play, aerial threat, bringing others into the game with his back to goal. If England need a goal in the 75th minute against Croatia and the game is tight, Toney going on changes the shape.
That logic works if Toney is ready to play at tournament level. The honest question is whether he is. He has spent the last year playing in a league specifically designed for players winding down. The tempo is different. The opposition is different. The physical demands are different. None of that necessarily means he cannot deliver twenty minutes off the bench in Dallas. It means nobody can say with confidence that he can.
The selection is not impossible to defend. It is impossible to defend without having some doubt left over at the end.
2. DJED SPENCE
He is at Tottenham. Fewer than ten starts all season. Going to the World Cup.
Trent Alexander-Arnold is at home.
Tuchel’s position on this, stripped of the diplomatic language he used when asked about it: Trent plays as an inverted midfielder at Liverpool and does not function the same way as a conventional right-back in a defensive international system. Spence is a traditional right-back. Tuchel wants the traditional right-back.
The problem is that Spence has barely played. You are choosing a tactical principle over one of the best players in English football and doing it on the basis of a player who has spent most of the season on the bench at Tottenham. If Tuchel had picked someone who plays regularly and fits the defensive profile the decision would be easier to accept. Picking someone who barely plays and calling it a tactical preference asks England supporters to trust something they cannot verify because there is not enough recent evidence for it.
Trent has been one of the most creative players in European football. Spence has been available for selection most weekends and Tottenham have not selected him. That is where the argument sits.
3. JORDAN HENDERSON
He is 34. He is at Brentford. He is going to his fourth World Cup.
There are players who did not make this squad who are in their twenties and would have benefited from the experience of a tournament in ways Henderson cannot. Henderson’s international future has roughly zero games left in it after June. The players who missed out might have had fifty.
Tuchel rates what Henderson brings to the squad environment. The experience, the knowing when someone in the dressing room needs a conversation, the understanding of what six weeks in a tournament camp does to a group of players. That value is real. Senior professionals in World Cup squads serve a purpose beyond what they produce on the pitch.
But Henderson has not been good enough at football level to warrant a World Cup place on footballing grounds for a while now. He is there because Tuchel trusts him to manage the room. That might be the right call. It is also a call that costs someone else their place.
4. DAN BURN
He is 32. He has had a solid Premier League career at various clubs and has never been considered an elite international option. He is the left-back cover in this squad.
Tuchel’s logic: Burn defends. He is physical, he is disciplined, he does not gamble. In a system where the wide players have significant defensive responsibilities a left-back who stays and does not take risks is exactly what Tuchel wants.
That logic holds together. The uncomfortable version of it is that England apparently have nobody under 30 who fits this description. A 32-year-old left-back as cover at a World Cup is a statement about the depth of the position. It might be an accurate statement. It is not a comfortable one.
5. MORGAN ROGERS
Ten goals. Six assists. Europa League winner at 23. Two years ago you would have struggled to name him.
He is genuinely good. That is not what people are arguing about. He presses, he contributes defensively, he has the technical quality to operate in tight spaces and Tuchel watched him for a full season at Villa and liked what he saw. The profile fits.
The argument against is not really about Rogers. It is about the principle. Gibbs-White at Nottingham Forest had a comparable season. He is not going. The conversation is whether selecting for system fit over everything else is the right way to build a World Cup squad or whether Tuchel has been so specific in his requirements that he has excluded players who would have contributed more in the tournament itself.
If Rogers starts a game and scores or assists in this World Cup the debate is over. Until that happens the selection sits in the squad list as the one people point to when they want to question Tuchel’s judgement.
THE FIVE TOGETHER
Toney from Saudi Arabia. Spence over Trent. Henderson at 34. Burn as cover. Rogers instead of the more established names.
Each one follows the same pattern. Tuchel selected for what he needs in his system and his tournament environment and not for reputation or recent form in the conventional sense. Maybe that is the right approach. Maybe England go deep in North America and all five justify their places in different ways.
June 17 in Dallas against Croatia. That is when the experiment starts.
The complete England World Cup guide has the full squad, fixtures and what the tournament looks like from here, and if you need to know how to watch England free in the UK on June 17 the streaming guide has every option.
