Thomas Tuchel snubbing Trent Alexander-Arnold will hurt - but it’s hardly a surprise

Thomas Tuchel insisted, in his press conference at Wembley Stadium on Friday, that there is still a way back for Trent Alexander-Arnold, the highest-profile of the players who were not part of his expanded 35-strong England squad for this month’s friendlies against Uruguay and Japan.

Tuchel spoke warmly about Alexander-Arnold’s talent and his qualities, about how much his own club sides had “suffered” when playing against him over the years.

But it was impossible not to conclude that Alexander-Arnold, along with Luke Shaw and Ollie Watkins, is now extremely unlikely to be in the squad that flies to Florida at the start of June to compete in the World Cup finals.

It will be a disappointment to all three but especially Alexander-Arnold: a unique talent, 27 years old, and starting to find his feet at new club Real Madrid. And yet now, unless there is a dramatic turnaround in the next two months, he will most likely be watching global football’s biggest tournament on TV.

Alexander-Arnold loves playing for England and is still determined to win a place in Tuchel’s World Cup squad, but his focus for now will be on finishing the season strongly with Real Madrid and hoping that is enough to convince Tuchel he is worthy of inclusion come the summer.

Being left off yesterday’s list will be especially painful for two simple reasons. The first is that these are the final two England games before Tuchel names his squad for the World Cup at the end of May. But the second is that the head coach has approached this camp differently from any other. He will start it with a 23-man squad of what you might call ‘Possibles’, including some uncapped players (James Garner, James Trafford) and some interesting recalls (Harry Maguire, Kobbie Mainoo, Dominic Solanke, Dominic Calvert-Lewin). They will compete to start against Uruguay at Wembley next Friday, March 27.

After that first game, some of those ‘Possibles’ will leave camp and be replaced by 11 ‘Probables’ (not Tuchel’s word) — players who have had a lot of football this season and who are likely to be on the plane to the World Cup anyway: Harry Kane, Declan Rice, Elliot Anderson, Bukayo Saka and so on. This will mean a stronger team against Japan, also at Wembley, on March 31.

This staggered approach gives Tuchel the chance to look at more players than he would normally do, in case someone makes an especially strong case for inclusion in the summer.

So if anyone is not even in that first group reporting at the start of next week, well, they might draw their own conclusions about where they stand in Tuchel’s thinking.

His simple explanation was that it was a “sporting decision” to stick with the three other right-backs who had shone in the autumn camps: Jarell Quansah, Tino Livramento and Djed Spence. “I know it’s a tough one (for Trent), I know it’s a big name, it’s a huge talent and a big career,” Tuchel said. “But I feel I know what Trent can give us, and I decided still to stick to the players who were in camp with us.”

When asked what swung his decision in favour of those three, Tuchel said they were of a “slightly different profile”, but pointed to what happened last year.

“It is more to do with the evidence that we have, that we were good in September, October and November, than it has anything to do with what Trent can offer us,” he said. “I know very well what Trent can offer us. I played many times against him and suffered when I played with my teams against Liverpool. So I know very well about his strengths and what he can give.

“But at the moment, there is evidence of how good we were in September, October and November. And the players who are in the camp, they have to push for the ticket, they have to compete, they have to show again that they deserve it.”

What makes this especially difficult is that none of Spence, Livramento and Quansah is England’s first-choice right-back. That is Reece James, who would have been in this squad but is out with another of his hamstring injuries. It used to be the case that Alexander-Arnold could not get a look-in for the England squad because of the competition at his position. But with Kieran Trippier and now Kyle Walker retired from international duty, and Ben White not selected since the 2022 World Cup, there is less of a battle for this spot than there was a few years ago. And yet he is still not in this squad.

The reality is that Alexander-Arnold has barely featured for Tuchel since he took over at the start of 2025. Having been first-choice right-back for Gareth Southgate’s interim replacement Lee Carsley, he was injured for the March camp last year and then made a substitute appearance in the laboured 1-0 win against Andorra in June, his only outing under the German.

The most telling thing to happen at that June camp was Tuchel saying when he announced his squad that Alexander-Arnold must “take the defensive part (of the game) very, very seriously” and could not only rely on what he does with the ball. Tuchel then did not call Alexander-Arnold up in September, saying it was a “competitive decision”, but that he had spoken to the player, who was “desperate and keen” to return to the England team.

But when Tuchel spoke to talkSPORT radio on Friday at Wembley, he revealed that he had not yet talked to Alexander-Arnold about him not making this group.

Tuchel did say he had spoken to Shaw, who has not played for England since the final of Euro 2024, but who is in good form for Manchester United. He admitted that Shaw was “upset” and that he “feels it is slightly unfair”, a viewpoint which Tuchel accepted. But Shaw has found that Nico O’Reilly and Lewis Hall — as well as Spence and Livramento — are ahead of him for the left-back spot. As with Alexander-Arnold, it feels highly unlikely Shaw will be on England’s flight to the United States in June either.

Perhaps it should not be a surprise that Tuchel has done this.

The biggest debate around the England team last year concerned his decision not to pick Jude Bellingham for the October camp. Tuchel was asked about it repeatedly and always insisted that there was far more to his job than simply choosing the country’s best players and figuring out the rest later. “We don’t collect the most talented players,” he would often say. “We collect the guys who have the glue and cohesion to be the best team.”

But Bellingham and Phil Foden were back in the squad for November’s final pair of World Cup qualifiers and that particular debate subsided. But Tuchel always wanted people to see that he meant what he said, and he would not pick big names on profile alone.

In his decision not to recall Alexander-Arnold, and his likely absence from the 2026 World Cup, Tuchel has made that point very clear.

Click here to read article