Thomas Tuchel has revealed the reasons as to why Jude Bellingham has not been called up for this month’s England squad, despite the midfielder now back fit.
Bellingham missed last month’s qualifiers as he stepped up his recovery from a shoulder operation, but has returned to action for Real Madrid since.
The 22-year-old has played four games for the Spanish giants since his comeback on September 20 – with his most recent outing being Tuesday’s 5-0 Champions League win at Kairat Almaty.
Despite playing for his club, he’s deemed not needed for his country at the moment with Tuchel opting to stick with the midfield options who helped England beat Andorra and Serbia in September.
Explaining why he has chosen his squad, Tuchel said: ‘It’s only three weeks since the last camp. We had a winning last performance so the question was why not bring the same group in because they set the standards and now it’s about creating habits out of it.
‘We have two injuries with Tino [Livramento] and Noni [Madueke] and we bring Bukayo Saka in to replace Noni and Jarrel Quansah was a late call up last time. He will stay in camp.’
Jude Bellingham (left) has been dropped from the England squad this month by Thomas Tuchel
As a result of Tuchel’s words his midfield options, for the friendly against Wales on October and World Cup qualifier against Latvia on October 14, are Elliot Anderson, Morgan Gibbs-White, Jordan Henderson, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Declan Rice and Morgan Rogers.
Of that sextuplet, it would appear that Bellingham would be in direct competition with Gibbs-White and Rogers as they are more attack-minded.
