England vs Andorra live: Elliot Anderson makes Three Lions debut as World Cup preparations continue – UK Times

Isak’s desire to leave Newcastle for Anfield formed the saga of the summer, and it has been reported that some players were “let down” by the situation. Burn nevertheless illustrated a pragmatic view, even if, “as a Newcastle fan”, he wanted Isak to stay.

Before the meeting of these two teams in June this year, England had enjoyed a fine run against Andorra.

Even though they were victorious last time out a 1-0 win was seen as a struggling performance by the Three Lions.

That is because they had won their previous two matches against Andorra by comfortable margins.

The two fixtures from 2021 ended in 4-0 and 5-0 victories for England who were under the stewardship of Gareth Southgate at the time.

Will they notch up a big score at Villa Park today?

Thomas Tuchel makes seven changes from the team that last lined up for England.

Jordan Pickford returns in goal with Reece James, Marc Guehi and Dan Burn rejoining Myles Lewis-Skelly in the backline.

Declan Rice keeps his place in midfield and is joined by Elliot Anderson who makes his senior international debut.

Bukayo Sake, Anthony Gordon and Conor Gallagher all drop out as Noni Madueke and Marcus Rashford come in to play either side of Eberechi Eze.

Harry Kane leads the line as usual.

England XI: Pickford; James, Guehi, Burn, Lewis-Skelly; Rice, Anderson; Madueke, Eze, Rashford; Kane

England are unbeaten in their last 34 World Cup qualifiers with 26 wins and eight draws.

Their last defeat was a 1-0 loss at Ukraine in October 2009.

At home, they’re unbeaten in their last 30 (27 wins, three draws) since losing 1-0 to Germany in their final game at the old Wembley in October 2000.

Dan Burn has his sights set on earning a place in the World Cup squad which, he admits, looked ‘a long way off’ not too long ago.

The Newcastle defender added: “On a personal level, I’m probably playing the best football that I have in my career. I feel really good physically and I’m in a good place mentally where I’m up for the challenge.

“As I said, in my very first camp, the World Cup was something that was not even close to being on my radar but now we’re in camp three and building towards it.

“I just want to try and implement what the gaffer’s asking of me in the team and just trying to play as well as I can so I keep getting picked for these camps.”

Newcastle defender, Dan Burn, joins up with the national side for the third time in his career and has been revealing how it feels to play for England.

He said: “I think the first camp was amazing to be there but I feel like the more camps I go on now, I feel more confident in my own ability to play at this level.

“I think it’s the unknown until you come here and you’ve played a game – you don’t really know if you can do it.

“But now that I’ve done it and I’m starting to build up the camps – I think it’s camp three now and three to go – I feel like I should be here and deserving a place.”

Ruben Loftus-Cheek says he is now at “peace with the past” after his serious Achilles injury threatened to derail his career.

The AC Milan midfielder is back in the England squad for the first time since March 2019 after getting a late call-up for the forthcoming World Cup qualifiers against Andorra and Serbia.

The now 29-year-old was a big part of the national squad under Sir Gareth Southgate when he ruptured his Achilles in a post-season charity match for Chelsea against New England Revolution in the summer of 2019.

Andorra have lost their three away matches against England by an aggregate score of 15-0.

Without a goal in seven matches against the Three Lions, the only other nation they’ve faced that often without scoring against is Iceland (also seven).

Thomas Tuchel says he will start a team he ‘trusts’ against Andorra this evening as preparations for next year’s World Cup ramp up.

The head coach explained: “It’s World Cup season. We have a condensed period of three camps, the competition is on and that means we will start with a team that we trust and with the best team possible for this game and then we will manage the second game.

“We will not do it backwards and manage theoretically, a more difficult away game than a home game. We will not start getting caught up in experiments like this. We do our assessment after the match and see who’s available.

“The players will start anyway to play two matches a week and three matches a week after international camp, so I don’t see a problem why they cannot start one week earlier and play Saturday, Tuesday.”