‘I don’t understand’ – Alan Shearer questions Cole Palmer’s withdrawal from England squad

Alan Shearer says he ‘doesn’t understand’ Cole Palmer’s withdrawal from England’s Nations League squad considering the Chelsea attacker ‘hasn’t played a lot of football’ following his World Cup snub this summer.

Palmer was named in Thomas Tuchel’s initial 27-man party for England’s upcoming games against Spain, the Czech Republic (playing home and away) and Croatia last week.

The 24-year-old went on to see out the full 90 minutes of Chelsea’s 3-0 loss to Brentford on Friday night – his seventh appearance of the season in all competitions for the Blues.

After a deeply frustrating 2025/26 campaign with Chelsea, Palmer had hoped to have put his fitness concerns behind him, with the former Manchester City man registering four goals and two assists this term.

But on Monday it was announced that Palmer had pulled out of the Three Lions’ squad, along with Arsenal’s Declan Rice, Newcastle’s Tino Livramento and Manchester United duo Marcus Rashford and Kobbie Mainoo.

Everton’s James Garner and Nottingham Forest’s Morgan Gibbs-White, who have been called up as cover, will no doubt be looking to make their case for selection over the next fortnight.

‘I think at every opportunity you have to go and play for England. You can’t just turn up for World Cups or Euros or whatever,’ ex-England striker Shearer told Betfair when asked about the five withdrawals from Tuchel’s squad.

‘We don’t know, and we’re speculating, but it’s a lot of players to pull out, isn’t it?

‘Rice, I guess, his withdrawal is because of the amount of football he’s played. It does look as if he’s nursing something.

‘The others, I don’t know their situation, but that’s a lot of players to be pulling out.

‘However, what it does do is give others the opportunity to stake their claim. Someone like Morgan Gibbs-White has the chance now because Tuchel’s words were, well, there’s too many tens. Well, one’s pulled out.

‘Now he’s got his opportunity. You can imagine if he goes in there and does well, scores, puts in a really good performance, then the manager would have to pick him for the next squad because of that and that’s the opportunity he’s now got.’

A ‘minor muscular issue’ has been cited as the reason for Palmer’s absence in the intervening days.

But given Palmer’s lack of football after a long summer break, Shearer has been left a little puzzled by the news of his withdrawal.

‘The one I don’t understand is Cole Palmer’s withdrawal from the squad,’ Shearer, the Premier League’s all-time top goalscorer, added.

‘I get that you have to manage your body, but he’s not played a lot of football and he’s not going to play a lot of football with Chelsea not being in Europe this season.

‘So, without knowing all of the reasoning, that one is the standout one for me, especially when he wasn’t at the World Cup.’

Shearer is looking forward to England’s four matches, especially Saturday’s encounter with Spain – where Tuchel’s men have a chance to exact some sort of revenge in what is a repeat of the Euro 2024 final.

‘I think the Nations League games are better than friendlies. I guess it was designed to get rid of the friendlies and make it more competitive so I’m for this platform of international football,’ he said.

‘I certainly think the games are more competitive in terms of England for example.

‘They are playing Spain, which I think is far more interesting than them playing a friendly game against no hopers.

‘I guess any trophy is a nice trophy to try and win, but the one England would want would be the Euros or the World Cup and the World Cup’s gone so they now have to prepare for that and all these games are now in preparation for two years’ time in the Euros on home soil.’

Looking ahead to this weekend’s heavyweight clash at Wembley, the iconic former Newcastle forward backed England to hold the world champions to a draw.

‘England’s game on Saturday against Spain will have something extra on it because of what happened to England at the World Cup,’ he went on.

‘All the talk and perhaps rightly so until after this game will be how England got knocked out against Argentina and Tuchel’s had to answer those questions in his press conference and rightly so.

‘I didn’t agree with some of the comments that he said in terms of 99 per cent of the people that he spoke to are not interested in what happened against Argentina, people talk to him about Croatia or Mexico.

‘Well, that’s not what my friends and people in football were saying. So, it’s a big game because of that and they’ll want to get that out of their system. England will be desperate to get out onto the pitch again, so we now start talking about what happened in that game rather than the last one against Argentina.

‘I’m going to say the game will finish 2-2. I think it’ll be a really entertaining game. I think it’s a great game to start off with. So, I’m going to go score draw between Spain and England on Saturday.’

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