Morgan Rogers has the shirt but the England head coach has lit a fire under star names by leaving them on the bench
It didn’t exactly feel like a thrilling three-way shootout for the role of England’s top gun No 10. At least, not for the opening hour anyway. Wembley was a sodden place at kick-off, the rain falling in huge slow flakes, the kind of rain that puts a lid on the world. And for long periods this was a strange, bloodless experience, a World Cup qualifier with very little qualification at stake beyond the dwindling hopes of Serbia.
By the end, however, there was at least a sense that something had happened here. You have to hand it to Thomas Tuchel, currently cresting a wave as England’s first master of negging, founding member of the don’t really give a toss school of international management.
Tuchel got what he wanted out of this, whether it was an act of power-play, a twitch of the thread, or just lighting a fire under both Jude Bellingham and Phil Foden, cast in the tole of underlings and finishers here, and by the end the most interesting elements on the pitch.
The current England double header was always going to end up as a kind of selection playoff. Much had been made in the build-up of Tuchel’s comment that he won’t play Harry Kane, Jude Bellingham and Phil Foden in the same team. This became a little blurred. What he meant was: we will only have one No 10, one central creator, no jamming in the full hand of stars, no trying to eat all the biscuits in the selection box at once. And one of these star players, that guy you like, is going to miss out as a result.
