for World Cup qualifiers against Andorra and Serbia<\/a>.<\/p>\nThis was after Tuchel even opted to pick Alexander-Arnold’s former Liverpool team-mate Curtis Jones, a central midfielder, ahead of him at right-back against Andorra in June.<\/p>\n
Tuchel has made his concerns over Alexander-Arnold’s perceived defensive frailties clear, saying: “If he wants to have this impact in the English national team then he has to take the defensive part very, very seriously.<\/p>\n
“Because when we are talking, especially about qualifying football, and then tournament football, the one defensive error, the one moment where you are not 100% awake, can be decisive. It can be the moment where you pack your suitcases and go home.”<\/p>\n
Packing his suitcase early for a flight back to England is not on Tuchel’s agenda – so one of the country’s most naturally gifted footballers is overlooked again.<\/p>\n
Alexander-Arnold was not included in Tuchel’s 35-man squad for friendlies against Uruguay and Japan in March, missing out again when the coach needed to seek reinforcements.<\/p>\n
Tuchel instead picked Arsenal’s Ben White, who has not been a regular at club level and had been in self-imposed England exile since the Qatar World Cup in 2022.<\/p>\n
Alexander-Arnold did make Tuchel’s provisional 55-man World Cup squad, although that could hardly be called a ringing endorsement.<\/p>\n
It is in sharp contrast to the faith placed in Alexander-Arnold by Lee Carsley, England’s Under-21 coach who bridged the gap between Southgate’s departure and Tuchel’s appointment.<\/p>\n
Carsley even used Alexander-Arnold at left-back in a 3-1 Nations League win at Finland in October 2024, crowning his performance with a superb free-kick.<\/p>\n
Alexander-Arnold started four games out of six under Carsley but none of Tuchel’s 14 – those facts speak for themselves.<\/p>\n
As a head coach who fixates on squad togetherness, was there a worry that having such a high-profile player on the margins might lead Alexander-Arnold to provide an unintentional distraction and focus of attention?<\/p>\n
Alexander-Arnold’s latest rejection appears to be further evidence there is no way back for him with England as long as Tuchel is in charge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tuchel’s decision to select a central defender in Chalobah, rather than a natural full-back replacement, is further proof…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":503014,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-503013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/503014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}