“We are not collecting the most talented players, we are trying to build a team. Teams win trophies, no-one else.” If anyone was in any doubt as to whether England manager Thomas Tuchel planned to stick to his fairly unpopular selection policy with the World Cup fast approaching, those pointed words ahead of the friendly victory over Wales more or less confirmed it.

To date, the German tactician’s tenure has been punctuated by questionable calls on who deserves a place in his squad, with a number of in-form hopefuls overlooked and the likes of Jordan Henderson and Ruben Loftus-Cheek surprisingly ushered back in from the international wilderness.

“That’s how it is in international football,” the Three Lions’ boss continued. “But the thing you are playing [back to me] is not what I am saying. You are playing the game that says: ‘He (Tuchel) is saying the others who aren’t in the team, you cannot build a team with them’. It’s not like this. We built a team with the players who were available and they did so well so we go again with them. Nobody said we can’t do the same with them. Or even better, or maybe the same level, with the others.”

However, Tuchel’s determination to stick with the same group in October that impressed him in the September international break has led to more controversial snubs, with some of the country’s biggest names left out with only a handful of games remaining before England, barring an absolute catastrophe in those final qualification matches, will be lining up at the World Cup in North America next summer.

“For this moment we stick with our choice and the radical statement is that we don’t collect the most talented players,” the manager continued. “We collect the guys who have the glue and cohesion to be the best team. Because we need to arrive as the best team. We will arrive as underdogs at the World Cup because we haven’t won it for decades and we will play against teams who have repeatedly won it during that time. So we have to arrive as a team or we will have no chance.”

This was a stark warning to England’s ‘most talented’ stars. With that in mind, GOAL assesses the eight players who are most under threat in the lead-up to the tournament…