Topics: Thomas Tuchel, England
Thomas Tuchel is refusing to pick a "respected" England player in his England squad, a new report has revealed.
Tuchel officially started his 18-month reign as England manager on 1 January after replacing Gareth Southgate and has lost just one of his nine games at the helm - a friendly against Senegal at the City Ground.
The German guided England to the World Cup with absolute ease, winning all seven of the qualification games without conceding a single goal going into the final fixture against Albania on Sunday.
Tuchel has proved he is not afraid to make big decisions that he thinks are for the good of the term., with Jude Bellingham and Phil Foden only recently coming back into the fold after a spell out of the squad.
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He has also brought in the likes of Dan Burn, Trevoh Chalobah, Djed Spence and Elliot Anderson - the latter looking like one of the first names on the teamsheet for the World Cup next summer.
Manchester City's Nico O'Reilly is the latest player to represent England, becoming the 1296th Three Lions star with his debut against Serbia on Thursday.
However, there is one player who is not in Tuchel's thinking. In an article from Ian Ladyman of the Daily Mail, where Tuchel is described as "rigid" but "unapologetic" about his approach, it's claimed that there is a a senior England star he "steadfastly refuses to select" because the unnamed player "will expect to play every game".
Taking a stubborn stance, Tuchel was told that people can change but proceeded to reply: "Not in this instance. I don’t want him with us".
The former Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain boss has been critical of his own players and had to issue an apology for branding Bellingham "repulsive", stating that he “used the wrong word" and it was "unintentional”.
In his latest press conference ahead of the trip to Tirana, Tuchel was critical of one of his players - sending a warning to Spurs defender Spence following on from his controversial snubbing of Thomas Frank.
Spence, along with teammate Micky van de Ven, ignored the Dane as they walked off following a 1-0 loss to Chelsea.
Though Spence wasn't representing England when the incident happened, Tuchel was in attendance and stressed that Spence and the rest of his squad must always maintain a high standard of "behaviour".
"Yeah, I didn’t like it," Tuchel said.
"Because the players know they are not only national players when they are the 10 days in camp, they are always national players and the standard of behaviour is always important."
