Thomas Tuchel suggested he won’t make many changes to his England team for next month’s qualifiers despite reaching the 2026 FIFA World Cup with two games to spare.
The Three Lions hammered Latvia 5-0 away on Tuesday night to book their place in next summer’s tournament in North America.
Anthony Gordon opened the scoring before Harry Kane grabbed a brace on the brink of halftime. Maksims Tonisev inadvertently put a Djed Spence cross into his own net in the second half, and Eberechi Eze completed the rout with a late strike.
The result means England cannot be caught at the top of Group K by either Albania or Serbia. They have won all six of their games, scoring 18 goals and conceding none.
Tuchel wary of making changes to ‘very precious’ England team
Tuchel now has the luxury of being able to rest his key players and rotate his starting lineup in their final two group games against Serbia and Albania. However, the German hinted that he may prefer to stick with his regular starters in order to build team rhythm ahead of the World Cup.
“Now we know we’re qualified I’m not sure if this changes anything in the nomination process.
“Now is the moment to enjoy it, you can feel it in the dressing room. It’s a very special moment and it’s not a daily thing that we qualify for the World Cup and we did that today.
“Harry [Kane] just gave a speech where he said everyone will be ready to keep this going in November and no-one will take this for granted.
“Maybe it will give us the chance to try stuff, but we will stay competitive and we want to win both matches. We owe it to ourselves and owe it to our fans. We need to keep going and what we are building is very precious and we will keep building.”
Tuchel’s comments could be bad news for the likes of Phil Foden, Jack Grealish, Adam Wharton and Curtis Jones, all of whom were omitted from this past week’s squad.
Jude Bellingham was also left out after recovering from shoulder surgery only recently, although is expected to return to the fold next month.
