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Photo: aol.co.uk
Tuchel's early England winners and losers
Thomas Tuchel said he wanted continuity after England's World Cup semi-final run. Three camps in, continuity is already looking optional, with The Guardian reporting a squad that has clear winners and clear losers forming under the German's watch.
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The idea of continuity is already bending
Tuchel inherited an England squad that had just gone as far as a World Cup semi-final, and the early noise around his appointment was about preserving what worked. According to The Guardian, that plan is already shifting shape in camp, with certain players pushing up the pecking order and others finding themselves on the outside of it faster than expected.
That is not unusual for a new manager with his own ideas about pressing triggers, build-up shape and who fits where. It is unusual how quickly the shift is showing up in squad lists and training groups just months into the job.
Who's rising
Alex Scott, Lewis Hall and Myles Lewis-Skelly are named by The Guardian as players currently on the right side of Tuchel's thinking. All three offer something England's previous setup didn't lean on as heavily: ball-carrying from deeper positions, comfort under pressure, and the kind of positional flexibility a manager obsessed with structure tends to reward early.
Hall's emergence fits a pattern Tuchel showed at Chelsea and Bayern Munich, where full-backs who can invert and support midfield were trusted over more traditional wide defenders. Lewis-Skelly has gone from Arsenal breakout to Tuchel's squad plans inside a handful of camps, with no senior tournament pedigree behind him.
Who's losing ground
The Guardian's report does not name every player being squeezed out, but the pattern in camp is blunt: minutes and trust are going to players who fit Tuchel's structure, not to the names who started the World Cup semi-final. Tuchel's message, even unspoken, is that form and fit under his system matter more than reputation earned under Gareth Southgate or whoever carried England through to that semi-final.
For players who assumed a settled role after a strong tournament, that is a jolt. International squads tend to reward continuity, until a new manager decides continuity isn't actually what got the team to a semi-final in the first place.
Stakes for the next tournament cycle
England are early in a cycle that will shape squad selection heading toward the next major tournament, and camp hierarchy built now tends to calcify fast. Players who get minutes and trust in October tend to keep getting them. Players who don't can spend a long time trying to climb back in.
Tuchel has been in the job a matter of months. The squad he's assembling already looks noticeably different from the one he was handed.
Will Tuchel's new-look squad actually perform better than Southgate's semi-final team?
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