We’re ignoring the ‘mind-altering shoes’ because life is too short and we have already got a gnawing sense of unease that the cat might have licked the breakfast sandwich. So we land instead on the big England news.
‘Bellingham, Kane and Foden can’t play together – Tuchel’ screams the Daily Telegraph while The Times back page reads ‘Tuchel: Three stars cannot play together’.
Mediawatch is genuinely baffled at this being the ‘line’ that came out of the pre-match (yes, there is a match) interview. It is such an obvious statement that we’re not entirely sure how it counts as news. Do you know who else can’t play together? Jordan Pickford and Dean Henderson.
We are of course being facetious; Foden, Bellingham and Kane have actually played together in an England shirt. But the last time was March against Albania – in Thomas Tuchel’s very first game – when Foden played on the wing and was ‘awful’.
Since then Foden has rediscovered some excellent club form (while playing largely in central areas) while Tuchel said last week: “I think Phil [Foden] where he plays now lately for Man City was where I see him the strongest. I think he’s close to the opponent’s box, like a mix between a nine and a ten.
“For me, Phil scores and assists more from the 18-yard-box, where he scored against Dortmund; he’s on the half turn, he assists, he’s in the pockets. I think the main thing with Phil is that he gets a role in the central part of the pitch.”
So you would think that logic dictates that the player who is ‘a mix between a nine and a ten’ could not play with a nine AND a ten. But no, colour us shocked that Tuchel has claimed that all three cannot play on the pitch together.
‘Foden, Bellingham and Kane cannot all start in England’s system, Tuchel insists’ is The Guardian headline. Did he have to ‘insist’? Did somebody really, really try and change his mind and he stood firm?
‘Phil Foden and Jude Bellingham face England snub as World Cup plan becomes clearer’ say the Express. Which is one hell of a way to say that not all of the England footballers can play in every England team.
‘Thomas Tuchel has issued a stark warning to his star players – they cannot all feature in the same starting XI,’ apparently. And it will obviously come as a massive shock to those ‘star players’ entirely new to the concept of football.
