Tuchel to connect with Bellingham for next camp after Real Madrid star missed games against Wales and Latvia.
Before making his next selection in November, Thomas Tuchel will get in touch with Jude Bellingham and the other players he left out of his most recent England group.
The main topic of discussion has been the head coach’s choice to leave Bellingham out of the Wembley friendly against Wales last Thursday and the World Cup qualifying match against Latvia in Riga on Tuesday. There was no place for those who were left off the original roster due to fitness issues because Tuchel wanted to demonstrate his faith in the team that defeated Serbia and Andorra in September. Phil Foden was not far behind Bellingham as the most well-known absence versus Wales and Latvia. Adam Wharton was excluded as well.
With a perfect record of six victories out of six and six clean sheets, Tuchel’s squad qualified for the finals next summer after defeating Wales 3-0 and Latvia 5-0. In the final qualifiers against Albania in Tirana and Serbia at Wembley, he is eager to keep up the momentum and will again lean towards continuity; he has faith in those who have performed well in two outstanding camps.
Tuchel intends to stay connected to those presently on the outside, to ensure they remain hungry for involvement, saying: “Maybe we have the chance to invite more players [in November] or share some minutes.” It is a delicate balance and the situation with Bellingham is surely the most delicate owing to his status in the game.
Asked whether he would speak to Bellingham before the next camp, he said: “I guess so, why not? Of course, he’s an important player, he’s a big player.
“I will speak to a lot of players … to the guys who were not in camp, they will get texts from me – especially them. The guys who are now here have the reward, they feel the reward and it’s now necessary also I stay in touch with the other guys.
“No one has done anything wrong, it’s not a punishment or whatever, and I feel when I text them or I speak to them everyone is eager to come back. This is how it has to be and I have trust in more players than [those] here. We always speak about the same names [outside the squad] but we have Conor Gallagher, we have Trevoh Chalobah, we have Cole Palmer injured and a lot of other guys out there who deserve to be with us and are hungry and determined to be with us.”