\n<\/p>\n
Thomas Tuchel has warned he is unlikely to take five No 10s to the World Cup and has said Phil Foden, Jude Bellingham and Harry Kane cannot start together unless England change their system.<\/p>\n
The head coach is looking for the right tactical balance and is wary of cramming too many attackers into his lineup. His comments raise the prospect of at least one big-name player missing out on the tournament.<\/p>\n
Tuchel has brought in a structured 4-3-3, with one No 10 behind Kane and pacy wingers supporting the captain, and has been clear about defined roles in the team. The German, whose side have qualified for the World Cup with two games to spare, does not regard Foden as a wide player.<\/p>\n
Instead the Manchester City attacker is fighting with Bellingham and others for a central role. There is no desire on Tuchel\u2019s part to cramp Kane\u2019s style given the England captain is a striker who loves to drop back and create.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the moment, if we keep the structure, they cannot play,\u201d Tuchel told TalkSport. \u201cThey can but not in the structure, not for the balance that we developed and not for structure that comes also with wingers who are specialists in their positions. We play at the moment with a 6, 8, a 10 and a 9.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bellingham and Foden have returned to compete with Morgan Rogers and Eberechi Eze for Thursday\u2019s qualifier at home to Serbia and Sunday\u2019s in Albania, but there is additional competition from Cole Palmer and Morgan Gibbs-White. Palmer is out with a groin injury and Gibbs-White has not been selected.<\/p>\n
<\/span>Phil Foden is not regarded as a wide player by Thomas Tuchel.<\/span> Photograph: Eddie Keogh\/The FA\/Getty Images<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of players and there\u2019s the chance that we will not take everyone,\u201d Tuchel said. \u201cNot because we don\u2019t like it, not because they don\u2019t individually deserve it, but we will always do what\u2019s best for the team, we will always do what\u2019s best for winning.<\/p>\n \u201cWe will always do what\u2019s best for balance and we will try to keep the clarity, even if it means that we have to take tough decisions. We take tough decisions in any camp, and this will not change when we go to a tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Sign up to Football Daily<\/span><\/p>\n Kick off your evenings with the Guardian’s take on the world of football<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n It remains to be seen whether Bellingham starts instead of Rogers against Serbia. Foden will also hope for an opportunity. He has been described as a \u201c9-and-a-half\u201d by Tuchel and has also been talked about as a potential false 9. Tuchel was asked whether that left the 25-year-old under more pressure. \u201cYes and no,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you\u2019re a unique player, you can play both positions. I think he can play the 9, he can play the 10. It gives him, first of all, an advantage to compete for both positions.<\/p>\n \u201cFor Man City, he plays almost like an 8 so maybe during the next months we consider him as an 8. But I see a very, very low percentage that we take five No 10s in the No 10 position into a tournament. I don\u2019t see how this will help us.\u201d<\/p>\n Marc Gu\u00e9hi missed training as he continues his recovery from a foot injury. Tuchel is expected to select what he considers his strongest available team, with Marcus Rashford in line to replaced the injured Anthony Gordon on the left.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Thomas Tuchel has warned he is unlikely to take five No 10s to the World Cup and has said Phil Foden, Jude Bellingham and Harry Kane cannot start together unless England change their system. The head coach is looking for the right tactical balance and is wary of cramming too many attackers into his lineup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33058,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[1174,311,2456,18982,5276,927,1587,392,16265],"class_list":{"0":"post-33057","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-bellingham","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-englands","11":"tag-foden","12":"tag-insists","13":"tag-kane","14":"tag-start","15":"tag-system","16":"tag-tuchel"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33057\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}