England head coach Thomas Tuchel revealed he held “clear the air” talks with Ivan Toney and said the striker is part of his “special operations team” after his surprise World Cup selection — but says Chelsea’s Cole Palmer “failed” in his efforts to impress him.Tuchel unveiled his 26-man squad on Thursday morning and it included Toney, despite the Al Ahli striker not being involved internationally since last summer, but there was no space for Palmer or Manchester City’s Phil Foden.The England boss has now detailed he did not speak to Toney for a lengthy period of time after the June 2025 friendlies against Andorra and Senegal — the 30-year-old played for just two minutes across both games — but that they have now moved past that.“I was not happy with the June camp,” Tuchel said. “He knows that. And we had to clear the air after that. That was the first step to even start thinking about calling him up again, because I was not happy. That was then out of the picture and no more issues.“And then we started talking more deeply about the team and started talking different scenarios and what would be the most offensive lineup if we are going 1-0 down with 15 minutes to play, ten minutes plus extra time we need a goal. We are pushing. We are around the box. Balls are flying into the box.“Then his name comes up constantly. Because he has a presence. Harry loves to play with him, because he thinks that he takes the attention off him. He is even more of an old-school No 9 than Harry himself.“So would he be a player you would like to fall the ball down to if there is a ricochet in the box? Yes. Absolutely. Would he be the player that you want to have this touch? Does he take, with his presence, the attention off other strikers? Yes. And we try to build a strong set-piece squad. He can have his role there, defensively and offensively, and he is a world-class penalty taker.“He ticks suddenly a lot of boxes. It was necessarily that we talked with him again and clarified with him if he’s happy to come.”Although Tuchel did not travel to Saudi Arabia to watch Toney, Justin Cochrane, one of his assistant coaches, made the trip and the feedback was glowing.Tuchel’s due diligence on Toney extended to leaning on his relationship with Matthias Jaissle, Al Ahli’s head coach, who previously played for the 52-year-old in Stuttgart’s youth team.His comments on Toney, however, came in stark contrast to his view on Palmer, the Chelsea attacker, who was a surprise omission from Tuchel’s squad.The 24-year-old has struggled to hit the same heights he managed last season, managing only 10 goals and three assists in 33 appearances for the Premier League side, which is down on the 18 he scored and 14 he created in 2024-25.“I think he suffers from, first of all, a lack of individual form within the club, he was not as decisive or as influential as he was in the last seasons, throughout the whole season,” Tuchel said of Palmer. “Second of all, he was not very influential with us.“His record with us was just not outstanding, not good enough to make him, ‘No matter what, he is coming’. That is just the reality of it. He had to pull out several times injured, when he was in camp he did not have the impact that we all wanted to push him for.“I can find a lot of arguments to have him in the squad. I respect his quality and his very unique personality, he was never a problem in camp. I think his personality helps him, even in big moments, to not show nerves, and to be decisive, but to have these moments you need also to be in shape, you need to be influential within this group and he has just failed to prove it on a consistent level.”Tuchel described his phone call with Palmer as “one of the most difficult” he had to make given the midfielder’s prominence, but was steadfast in his belief of refusing to “bring players for the name.”Palmer has paid the price for a below-par season with Chelsea (Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)England will fly out to Florida on June 1 for their pre-World Cup camp, where they will play Costa Rica in Tampa on June 6 and New Zealand in Orlando four days later, on June 10, before then moving on to Kansas City, Missouri.They will be based in Kansas City throughout the tournament and Tuchel, who has previously conceded they lost out on their first choice of base to Argentina, has said they are putting provisions in place to avoid opposition teams spying on them — and made clear they will not be sending any spies to any sessions.This comes after Championship side Southampton were expelled from the play-offs after Tonda Eckert, the club’s head coach, was found to have authorised a “contrived and determined plan” to spy on opponents in a “deplorable approach”.Tuchel, miming pulling back an arrow on a bow and arrow, said: “Yeah, we will take care of that, of course. As good as possible and not in a crazy way. It is what it is. As you all know, Argentina had the first option to choose a very secluded high-end facility in Kansas (City).“We are very happy with the training facility, especially what the FA and all the people in charge made now out of it. I think it suits all of our needs. But I agree it can be overlooked. I think we will have security there and we will build a bit of protection.“Because of course it’s crucial if you train on a (matchday) minus-one you do your team build-ups, you do your set-pieces, you finalise with penalties … you don’t want the opponent to know. It just gives you a crucial advantage. So we’re trying to be as private as possible.”