Lazy Thomas Tuchel will soon be forced to do some actual work for his obscene wage as England manager and pick an actual squad and get them to play some actual football. That’ll teach the Germany-based layabout.
Anyway, who will be in that squad? There lies the fun, because we don’t know, do we? It’s all very new and exciting. Although it will probably still be Jordan Pickford in nets.
But beyond that, quite literally anything could happen. Here’s a list, then, of 10 players who could get either a first or unexpected second England chance under the workshy German. Rules are these: only players with no previous England call-up or whose last was more than 12 months ago qualify.
That means, for instance, that Marcus Rashford (and indeed Jordan Henderson) is sadly ineligible here. So don’t say him, but do jump in the comments to tell us who we have forgotten or overlooked because lord knows there will be several. This is non-exhaustive. We just like round numbers. But mainly we like Djed Spence.
Djed Spence (Tottenham Hotspur Or Spurs)
We cannot help but feel for poor old Gareth Southgate. We all know how much he loved and took great pride in two things. One: being the manager of England. Two: picking right-backs to play at left-back for England. And three would be something about waistcoats, although he did seem to go off those towards the end.
The question is this: would Southgate have packed in the England job had he known that Djed Spence was mere months away from metamorphosing into the right-back-at-left-back of his wildest dreams? He surely would not. But nor could Southgate, or indeed any of us, have seen this coming.
Spence started the season unable even to make Tottenham’s Europa League squad and by mid-December had scraped together barely an hour of Premier League football across four forgettable substitute appearances.
His first league start of the season came in the 5-0 win at Southampton and it took him less than a minute to set up James Maddison’s opening goal. He has missed only two games since: through suspension against Wolves and injury against Leicester. Spurs were rubbish in both those games, although that admittedly doesn’t say a lot.
Spence has now, though, taken to racking up man-of-the-match awards in Spurs wins with almost embarrassing regularity and despite not making his first start until mid-December is a live contender to be Spurs’ player of the season. That may say as much about Spurs’ season as Spence’s gloriously unlikely renaissance, but still.
Does now have a place in Spurs’ Europa League squad and surely merits one in Thomas Tuchel’s first England squad. Tuchel may not quite share Southgate’s fetish for right-backs who can play left-back – who does? – but such players are and will forever remain enormously useful in any tournament squad, and left-back is still not a position in which England are blessed with a super-abundance of options.
Lewis Hall was the leading left-back in the last England World Cup ladder, FFS.
Eric Dier (Bayern Munich)
From a current Spurs player enjoying an unlikely career uptick to a former Spurs player doing likewise.
Harry Kane smashing in all manner of goals in the Bundesliga is no surprise to anyone given the alacrity with which he used to do likewise for a worse team in a better league, but his mate Eric turning up from Spurs wilderness and becoming the cornerstone of the Bayern defence is a bit more of an eyebrow-raiser.
Hindsight is 20:20 but a quick look through some of the ‘centre-backs’ Spurs have deployed since allowing Dier to leave suggest they may have made one of their many, many errors there. Not that Bayern are complaining.
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: England have a bit of an issue at centre-back with mounting doubts around long-term favourites Harry Maguire and John Stones and nobody making a truly compelling job of replacing them and there’s a 49-cap, three-tournament veteran out there doing impressive work for one of the biggest clubs in the world.
Dier is 31 and not in any way a long-term solution to England’s problems. But Tuchel isn’t a man looking for long-term solutions as he lounges around on his German sofa in Germany.
He’ll know all about what Dier’s been up to in Germany because that’s where the England manager is spending all his time, isn’t it? Because of woke.
James Tarkowski (Everton)
Earned two caps in 2018 while still at Burnley, one before the World Cup in March and one in September. Was among the standby players for Russia 2018 but wasn’t required, and was last seen in an England squad six years ago.
But has to be a live chance now. The headline-grabbing brilliance of both the technique and timing of his equaliser against Liverpool has thrust him into a rare spotlight, but of greater significance has been his towering presence in an Everton defence that had become rock-solid even before the current Moyes Bounce, after an admittedly disastrous opening month to the season.
Tarkowski has seen it all with Everton this season, having played all but eight minutes of their topsy-turvy Premier League campaign and, while he may not have the international thoroughbred vibe of a Jarrad Branthwaite, he absolutely has solid claims on another chance with England.
Oh and he does a good swear.
Tyrone Mings (Aston Villa)
Only qualifies for this list by virtue of a harrowing long-running injury nightmare, having before that become one of the more established members of England’s rotating Maguire-and-Stones-back-up support crew at centre-back.
Has been easing his way back to where he belongs at the heart of Villa’s defence over the last couple of months and his importance is already being highlighted. Since his comeback in December against Brentford, Mings has played a significant part – an hour or more – in eight games and a bit-part or nothing at all in seven.
In the eight games he’s figured prominently, Villa have four wins and four draws (including against both Liverpool and Arsenal) and conceded 10 goals. In the seven games without significant Mings, Villa have two wins, a draw and four defeats with 13 goals conceded.
Alas, the very fact he remains in and out of the side in this way tells its own story of just how tough recovery from his knee injuries has been, and the fact he limped off after an hour of the win over Chelsea at the weekend is its own concern. He duly missed the 4-1 defeat at Palace, but the fact he was on the bench gives hope that any setback has not been a serious one.
Villa may very understandably prefer the idea of Mings getting rest and continuing his rehab with them during the international break, but all things being equal he’d be hard to ignore for the new England manager.
Archie Gray (Tottenham Hotspur Or Spurs)
At the very opposite end of Tuchel’s potential centre-back solutions from the 30-something Dier, Tarkowski and Mings sits Tottenham teenager and one of the season’s real surprise packages Archie Gray.
The surprise is not that he’s shown himself to be perfectly capable of stepping up to Premier League class – anyone who watched him for Leeds last season will have strongly suspected as much.
The surprise has been that he has done so in a stinking bin fire of a Tottenham season in which the youngster has been forced to play almost everywhere other than his preferred midfield role.
We knew he could adequately fill in at full-back when required but the maturity and poise with which he’s handled himself as an emergency centre-back has been truly impressive.
His future for both club and country surely lies further forward. England aren’t currently in desperate need for a long-term replacement for 26-year-old Declan Rice, but there’s a good chance that they’ve already got one in north London and that if/when Tottenham regain even the vaguest sense of equilibrium he will swiftly prove as much.
For now, and given the very specific parameters of Tuchel’s job spec, Gray probably remains with the U21s, and that’s fair enough. But he’s absolutely placed himself in the conversation having established himself as one of the key beneficiaries of Spurs’ season of crisitunity.
Max Kilman (West Ham)
Between the 30-somethings and teenagers sits an as-yet-unused England centre-back contender who could perhaps have done without West Ham being so very crap for such hefty chunks of the season.
But having famously futsaled his way out of a possible full international career with Ukraine, the 27-year-old might just be in the right place at the right time for Tuchel’s task.
Liam Delap (Ipswich)
Full list of English strikers with more Premier League goals this season than Liam Delap:
Ollie Watkins
End of list
Reaching double figures as the figurehead of the attack for a relegation-haunted side like Ipswich would be a solid effort for an established striker, and is even more impressive for a 22-year-old in his first season as a proper Premier League player.
Again, the narrowly specific nature of Tuchel’s England role may mean Delap has to wait for his chance but he has absolutely ensured he will be a point of discussion. Ipswich may have dwindling hopes of being in the Premier League next season, but it’s impossible to imagine Delap won’t be back in there somewhere.
At some point in the relatively near future the Harry Kane Era will come to an end for England and none of the other contenders for the job – Watkins, Dominic Solanke, er… – are long-term ones.
Delap sits alone in a very bare cupboard, which doesn’t sound very pleasant but does offer him a tantalising opportunity in the years ahead. But probably not quite yet.
Jadon Sancho (Chelsea)
Has he done quite enough with Chelsea to merit a return from the international wilderness? Probably not, but there’s also probably nobody in the country happier to see a German in charge of the England national team than Jadon.
And as a general rule, sitting right at the opposite end to The Sun and the Daily Mail is the correct place to be on any spectrum.
The case remains a flimsy one given the array of options England still possess behind and around the central striker, but Sancho is playing regularly and has a new manager who knows what he’s capable of. For a 24-year-old who won the last of his 23 caps as a 21-year-old, it’s something at least.
Omari Hutchinson (Ipswich)
Might be small-sample-size bias at play, but whenever I’ve watched Ipswich this season Hutchinson has stood out as their best player. We already know that Part-time Tuchel can’t even be bothered to watch any live matches, so maybe the England manager has stumbled upon the same conclusion.
Hutchinson does have two friendly caps for Jamaica, but does now appear to have committed himself to a proper crack at an England career.
Elliott Anderson (Nottingham Forest)
Another player with decisions to make over his international future, and it does appear that despite Scotland’s best, concerted and extended efforts to lure him back into their set-up, the Forest midfielder has decided England is the way to go.
As we keep saying, Tuchel’s England remit is not one built on long-term planning and foundation-building, but it still might be a good idea to get Anderson locked in after his key role in Forest’s unlikely tilt at Champions League qualification. And the fact central midfield remains an area of some uncertainty for England with Declan Rice the only absolute certainty in there.
