Another classic international break is in the books, and who could forget the thrills and spills of England’s rollercoaster ride to an easy 3-0 win over Wales and an easy 5-0 win over Latvia?
Truly, the history books will have to be rewritten. Everything else is a footnote. England are going to the World Cup. We thought they might.
We all know there’s a conspicuous elephant in the England selection room right now and we’re sure you’re eager to see just how far Jude Bellingham has fallen here. Some of you may even have skipped ahead. Naughty, but we’ll forgive you.
Personally we’re more interested in just how far Djed Spence has climbed, but we fully appreciate that might just be us.
As ever, the number-one and most important rule to keep in mind with the Ladder is this: this is not our top 50, but our best guess at what we think Thomas Tuchel’s top 50 is. And, just to set ourselves thoroughly up for November’s disastrous fall, we do think we’re starting to get a handle on how he’s approaching the job now. And who that is good/bad news for.
Last month’s England Ladder is here for your perusal, with the brackets below indicating each player’s ranking within it.
1) Harry Kane (2)
And just like we always do and just like we knew we would again, after bumping Kane down a spot just to feel alive we pop him straight back to the top. Has perhaps never been under less threat for his starting spot in this team, and does seem like a fever dream now to consider he was struggling so much during the Euros last summer that actual cheers greeted him being replaced by Ollie Watkins.
The lack of competition for his place might be of more concern if he wasn’t just so unbelievably brilliant. We will still fight anyone who says he’s playing better than ever; he’s just doing all the same incredible things he did for years and years and years except instead of doing them for a silly team in a truly elite league he’s doing them for a truly elite team in a silly league.
But the key thing here is the incredibleness and brilliance. Even those of us who believe his real goal tally to be zero must accept that Kane is now quite likely to reach 100 goals for a country where for over a century the 50-goal mark appeared to represent an unbreakable ceiling.
Ronaldo-like longevity cannot be ruled out for a player who looks after himself impeccably, making it highly conceivable that when his England career does finally end he will have twice as many goals as any other England player in history.
And people will still argue he isn’t an all-time great. Maybe he just needs a haircut.
2) Declan Rice (1)
Just a brilliant player whose role and its importance grows with every game for both club and country. A perfect example of how stepping up in class as he did when leaving West Ham for Arsenal can help mould an excellent player into a truly world-class one.
Very little more you could want from a midfielder than what Rice now delivers on a regular basis, and his set-piece prowess in particular absolutely screams tight-tournament-game difference-maker.
As we say in every Ladder these days, the numbers next to his and Harry Kane’s names are largely meaningless because both are absolute nailed-on certainties.
3) Jordan Pickford (3)
Has played every competitive game since Thomas Tuchel took over and has conceded not one goal. Quality of opposition a factor, for sure, but it’s still a remarkable degree of faultlessness for a player who absolutely loves playing for England and has become exceptionally good at it.
4) Bukayo Saka (5)
Brilliant against Wales, quieter against Latvia, still we’re pretty certain when push comes to tournament shove a definite starter on the right in a full-strength England team, no matter how persuasive and admirable and extremely-useful-to-have-around-just-in-case the charms of Noni Madueke may be.
As it is for England, so it is for Arsenal. It’s a very good situation for both, and there’s no real need to complicate it beyond that, we don’t think.
5) John Stones (8)
Lovely to have him back in an England shirt for the first time in a year, and it just looked and felt right to have him there. There really is a lovely experienced and reassuringly reliable spine to that England team with Stones back in position ahead of Pickford and behind Rice and Kane.
6) Elliot Anderson (9)
Continues to look utterly suited to and entirely unflustered by international football, and that partnership with Rice already looks like one that manages the neat yet deceptively difficult trick for a midfield duo of highlighting and accentuating each man’s strengths rather than each man’s flaws.
It’s a trick that has quite famously proved beyond some of England’s very best central midfielders ever.
One of the biggest and most significant problems to which Tuchel had to find a swift answer on this short sprint to attempted World Cup glory was ‘Who partners Declan Rice in midfield?’
It is no longer a big or significant problem.
7) Marc Guehi (7)
His absence against Latvia was reportedly nothing more than ‘managing minutes’ so for now we’re still assuming he’s ahead of Ezri Konsa in the centre-back pecking order but there’s no real doubt now that both are in the top three of said centre-back pecking order.
We very much enjoyed his ‘centre-back playmaker’ role against Wales. You just don’t see that often.
8) Reece James (6)
Injured Reece James is injured. So, so utterly frustrating, but it does at least appear on this occasion that his latest absence from England duty was precautionary rather than strictly necessary and represented just some sensible club-country joint dialogue and decision-making towards a mutually beneficial final outcome.
We’re very sure that a fully fit James is Tuchel’s first-choice right-back, given their history and James’ quality, but above all that because of the fact that in his absence during this break Tuchel didn’t actually even take the chance to look at a different right-back.
Centre-back Ezri Konsa did the job for most of the Wales game, with left-back Djed Spence finishing that job and then staying there for the Latvia game.
A left-back doing a passable fill-in job at right-back was at least a fun little Tuchel reversal of one of Gareth Southgate’s favourite tropes.
9) Anthony Gordon (11)
We find ourselves in agreement with Tuchel but not, perhaps, with a majority of England fans that Gordon is the first-choice starter on the left-wing now.
As with Morgan Rogers, the evidence Tuchel is showing us tells us that’s how he sees it, Gordon having started each of the last three games.
We didn’t really understand much of the criticism of Gordon’s performance against Wales. The frustration that the end product wasn’t quite there is fine, but it seemed to be overplayed in regard to what was there, which was further evidence of how Gordon’s direct running on the left offers a counterpoint and contrast to England’s more methodical and patient approach elsewhere, giving them the ability to alter the pace and direction of their attacks in a pleasingly defence-disorienting manner.
He also struck up an instant rapport with Djed Spence that possibly answers another of England’s thornier pre-World Cup posers.
But even if the criticisms after Wales were valid, the Latvia performance silenced them. Created a big early chance for Harry Kane – and if you create a big chance for Harry Kane at this moment in time and don’t end up with an assist to show for it you can count yourself particularly unfortunate – before grabbing his chance to score a brilliant counter-attack goal the one moment Latvia’s back nine were briefly otherwise engaged on a rare and foolhardy attack .
Your mileage may vary, but for us for now – and, far more importantly, for Tuchel – he’s won the battle with Marcus Rashford.
10) Morgan Rogers (10)
A better showing against Latvia really would have been even more persuasive but when you combine the fact Rogers has started four of England’s last five qualifiers, including each of the last three in the No. 10 position, with everything Tuchel has side about backing and continuing to select the men in possession who are doing the business for him it becomes impossible to conclude anything other than that at this moment of time Rogers is England’s first choice in that position.
And, as ever, while we may call it ‘our’ F365 England Ladder it is always nothing more nor less than our best guess at figuring out the current England manager’s Ladder.
Sweep away all the narrative and the discourse and the noise, and when viewed like that it’s pretty clear how the land currently lies.
11) Djed Spence (26)
Resurrected his Tottenham career in spectacular style last season, culminating in Europa League glory and a long-awaited chance for another trophy-and-cigars photo op, and now spending this season making a momentous climb in the England standings.
In the summer, we had him down at 47 among the ‘might be in with a shot if injuries strike, we suppose’ afterthought slots, far too close to Phil Neville for comfort. By last month he’d jumped into a tentative ‘could make the final squad, actually’ position. And now we think he’s Tuchel’s first-choice left-back. Fight us.
He’s the best pure defender England have available among their vast array of full-back options, probably on either flank, and our argument would be this: if you’re starting him, as Tuchel did in both games here, in friendlies and straightforward easily-won qualifiers, then you are surely definitely going to start him in your actual tournament games where defending might actually matter.
Despite starting his career the other way round, Spence is now definitely a left-back who can do a job at right-back, and for England that really is probably the more useful way round to be. Is clearly working on becoming a more effective contributor to the attacking side of the game, and, while Wales were startlingly and surprisingly flimsy opposition at Wembley, there were plenty of encouraging signs in the way he and Gordon linked up on the left flank that night.
He just looks the right fit at the right time, and a potentially huge beneficiary of Tuchel walking the walk with his ‘backing the players who deliver for me’ approach to selection.
READ: Roy Keane guilty of lazy stereotypes with Djed Spence ‘defensive side’ worries
12) Jude Bellingham (4)
The elephant in the room and the press have basically already told us this is going to be the only talking point for the now-moribund November international break. With England qualifying in record time and flawless fashion (six games, six wins, no goals conceded remember) something has to be bad and terrible and that something is going to be the Bellingham Situation. It already is the Bellingham Situation, but next month’s Bellingham Week will plumb fresh depths.
And there’s no way out of it for any of us now. It’s going to be all the media want to talk about, which they will combine with sad shaking of their heads as if they are not responsible for any of it. And this happens especially if Tuchel picks him in November, but especially if he doesn’t.
Which brings us to the big question for our purposes. Will Tuchel in fact pick him? It does seem to have been almost entirely overlooked and/or forgotten that this is a player who’s played about 120 minutes of football this season and for whom a fortnight spent building up fitness and sharpness really might prove just more useful in the long term than playing in two really very low-key and low-pressure internationals for England.
But we must also consider that Tuchel is not keeping secrets or playing games. He’s very, very clear: he will back the players who deliver for him, and across the last two Bellingham-less international breaks, England’s non-Bellinghams have delivered for him. Tuchel even suggested Bukayo Saka only got back in this time because Noni Madueke, in Tuchel’s eyes the man in possession, was injured.
This one really does feel like it’s more about Bellingham now than Tuchel. The England manager has no vendetta against Bellingham and nothing he’s said suggests he has any problem at all with picking him again in the future. But Tuchel is evidently now very comfortable with not picking Bellingham, and England’s results mean only Bellingham can change that. He has to a) play and b) play well for Real Madrid.
If he does that, we’re pretty sure Tuchel will pick him. But it still feels pretty wild to be having any of this kind of uncertainty about a player who has for several Ladders in a row now formed part of the straightforward default top five. A group including Kane, Rice, Saka and Pickford, where, sure, there might be some internal shuffling of the order amongst them but you were still always dealing with the core five inked-in certain starters. At the very, very least, Bellingham is no longer part of that little group.
13) Ezri Konsa (12)
An international break that did absolutely no harm to Konsa’s rock-solid squad-member status. Did a perfectly passable job as right-back in the first game before slotting seamlessly into his more customary centre-back role for the second.
Neither game was among the more arduous of Konsa’s career, but there was one excellent tracking run and last-gasp chance-snuffing tackle for the highlight reel in Riga.
He’s still one player where we will deviate slightly from the general rule that Tuchel’s most recent starters are his starters, because there are explanations as to why Konsa started both games.
We don’t think he starts when everyone is available, given the explanations at hand for why Konsa started these games – and did so in different positions.
What he definitely hasn’t done is fall many rungs from his previous ‘just outside the starting XI’ position.
14) Jordan Henderson (16)
Seems very unlikely Henderson could play his way into a first-choice starting role in England’s dynamic new midfield, but also feels even less likely he could now play his way out of his current squad role as canny senior pro and standards-setter.
Again, we don’t need to overcomplicate this one. Tuchel has picked him in his squad at every opportunity, but started him in a game only once, with five further caps coming as a relatively late substitute.
You don’t necessarily have to agree with it or like it, but you can’t argue with the role clarity on display here.
15) Eberechi Eze (15)
A very lively cameo from the bench in Riga adds another layer of intrigue to the No. 10 battle, while Eze also obviously offers another tantalising option in the wide areas.
Has made four appearances for England during this qualifying campaign, with three of those as substitute for the last 30-odd minutes.
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: we’re still getting to know Tuchel and his ways and, while we do think we’re getting the hang of him now, when he shows us how he sees a player with this level of clarity we will cheerfully go along with it.
Eze is a valued and valuable member of the squad, a dynamic game-changing option from the bench, but not yet a regular starter. All of that is absolutely fine.
16) Ollie Watkins (17)
Got himself a goal in a decent enough performance against Wales, and we have absolutely no problem at all with Watkins filling that all-important Harry Kane’s Back-up role that exists in any England squad.
What we do have a problem with is the fact Watkins now appears to be pretty much as unchallenged for that particular role as Kane is for his.
17) Noni Madueke (14)
Deeply unfortunate injury timing given how well he was playing for both club and country, but when he returns we fully expect him to be a thoroughly capable and entirely trusted Saka back-up for both club and country.
18) Marcus Rashford (20)
Came on for Gordon in both games this month. A slight curiosity of that is that this therefore represents a break where his place within the squad has become more assured even as he has slipped slightly further away from a starting berth.
Does just feel like Tuchel prefers what Gordon offers on that left-hand side, but Rashford has done himself no harm with his form for Barcelona or work during this camp, and offers a nice level of international and big-tournament know-how in a squad that is still a bit of a mix of a handful of extremely experienced veterans and a whole bunch of excellent but quite inexperienced players, yet not all that many in the 40-80 cap sweet spot.
19) Tino Livramento (13)
Current reports suggest an eight-week lay-off for Livramento after that nasty looking injury against Arsenal. Could have been better, could also have been much worse. But it does mean that he’s also set to miss the November international break and hand Djed Spence further opportunity to bed himself in as England’s first-choice left-back, a position that had looked there for Livramento’s taking.
20) Cole Palmer (18)
Assorted injury hassles have restricted him to barely an hour of football for England during Thomas Tuchel’s reign to date, meaning he is one player it is still desperately hard to place. Is he a Gordon, or is he a Foden? We just don’t yet quite know exactly how Tuchel sees him.
This is where we were with just about every player a few windows ago; it’s a relief at least that Palmer is now something of an outlier in that regard.
21) Dean Henderson (19)
Still the only other goalkeeper Tuchel has used besides Pickford during his eight games in charge, sitting on the bench in the No. 13 shirt for each of the other seven.
Ergo: he’s the second-choice keeper until we see some kind of evidence that he isn’t.
22) Jarrod Bowen (27)
An obviously excellent footballer but perhaps the least starry of England’s many, many attacking options across both flanks.
Yet we must again defer to the evidence Tuchel is presenting us. Bowen has been involved in all but one of the international breaks for which Tuchel has been in charge, and has made an appearance in five of the six games for which he’s been in the squad.
And if you’re a fringe player who was going to miss out on one international break so far under Tuchel, you would definitely want it to be that grisly one in the summer where England scraped a wholly unconvincing 1-0 qualifying win over Andorra before losing a friendly to Senegal.
Shrewd work from Bowen; the only other Tuchel game in which he’s played no part at all was the other game against Andorra, in which England were scruffy 2-0 winners.
Causation and correlation be damned; the facts are that Bowen has played some part in Tuchel’s five most convincing matches as manager of England, and no part in the three least convincing. If nothing else, it’s a handy knack.
23) Ruben Loftus-Cheek (31)
A key rule of Thomas Tuchel England squads does appear to be that once you’re in them, it is up to someone else to force you out. And after seven years in the international wilderness, Loftus-Cheek is now very much in Tuchel’s England squads.
24) Dan Burn (22)
In the squad again, and came off the bench against Latvia to perform a role that mainly amounted to being a very, very large target for England’s flurry of free-kicks and corners in the closing minutes of a long-settled contest.
What it does do is tell us that he’s still one of Tuchel’s four centre-back picks at this stage, albeit clearly the least secure with Stones, Guehi and Konsa all looking like World Cup certainties.
25) James Trafford (23)
Look, third-choice keeper is rarely a position to worry yourself about unduly. If you reach a point in a tournament where you’re using your third-choice keeper, you’re probably already mired in deep and inescapable sh*t anyway.
And the fact Trafford has sat on the bench as third-choice keeper for every single one of Tuchel’s games to date remains the most compelling data point available to us.
But there’s an obvious cloud on the horizon here with Trafford having lost the No. 1 spot at Man City to Gianluigi Donnarumma.
Pretty hard to argue at this time that if England did find themselves having to actually use a third-choice keeper that you’d be more reassured to see Trafford out there than, say, Nick Pope.
26) Nico O’Reilly (NE)
If you’re a promising young midfielder and Pep Guardiola says he wants to turn you into a full-back, let him. Earned his first senior call-up this month after Reece James’ withdrawal, and while he didn’t get his chance in the end against either Wales or Latvia nor did any other right-back.
Which means under the rules of Tuchelism, O’Reilly is in until he isn’t. Because there has to be another full-back in there; you cannot possibly pick Reece James as your only specialist right-back and then rely on Spence or a shuffled-along centre-back as your only cover.
Whether that ends up being O’Reilly or someone less rogue, time will tell. But again. Tuchel’s rules, not ours. Nothing we can do about that, apart from the times when we decide we’re simply going to break them.
27) Morgan Gibbs-White (24)
Did get some minutes against Wales, but did little with them really. He’s a damn fine player and one of our favourites, but very clearly now sits behind Morgan Rogers and probably Eberechi Eze and, when it comes down to it, almost certainly also Jude Bellingham among England’s really very good No. 10 options. And we’ve not even mentioned Cole Palmer or Phil Foden, until just now, when we did mention them.
With Anderson’s emergence reducing the likelihood of any Bellingham return being alongside rather than in front of Rice in England’s midfield, it does all rather leave Gibbs-White looking like your classic ‘one of six players cut from the provisional squad’ next summer. The James Ward-Prowse role, if you will.
28) Myles Lewis-Skelly (21)
You felt for him during the Latvia game. Just isn’t playing enough football for Arsenal, and short of a Riccardo Calafiori injury we’re really not sure that’s going to change. It was entirely understandable that he looked so far off it when handed a chance to impress in Riga, but the problem for Lewis-Skelly is that there isn’t really a huge amount he can do about it apart from just knuckle down and hope.
Currently hard to shift the notion that with all things being equal and if nothing materially changes between now and next summer he will find himself behind both Djed Spence and a fit-again Tino Livramento in the pecking order.
And third-choice left-back isn’t usually a great position to be in when tournament squads are being finalised and whittled down.
29) Adam Wharton (41)
Might be a slight case of heart ruling head here because we really do love Wharton and feel like England might have missed a trick with him. Elliot Anderson appears to have locked down a starting spot alongside Rice and that’s all good. We have no issue there; Anderson is a fine player and definitely seems to be one of those who just looks right at home in the international game.
But it would be a massive shame if Tuchel can’t find at least a squad role for someone of Wharton’s supreme talent and ability to offer a fresh approach from an unusual angle. He’s your classic ‘footballer in an era of athletes’ kind of player, one who just sees the game slightly differently, capable of spotting and most importantly delivering the kind of passes others simply cannot.
The concerns around his ability to cover the requisite ground for Tuchelball are valid if dreary, but we do love the idea of Wharton as a bench option for times when a particularly stubborn low block requires unlocking.
And luckily we can bump him up the list slightly here without breaking any of our own rules, because Tuchel himself admitted Wharton was unlucky to be overlooked this time around given his Crystal Palace form.
‘He deserves to be with us,’ Tuchel said after naming his latest squad. Yes, Thomas. Yes he does. If only there were someone who could make that happen.
30) Trent Alexander-Arnold (28)
Has spent pretty much his entire England career being just about the hardest player to place in the Ladder and the one most likely to make us look very clever and then very stupid on a month-by-month rota basis.
We still don’t have much idea what to do with him and precious little Tuchel-era data to go by. The positive spin on it might be that while Reece James does appear to be Tuchel’s first choice the manager didn’t take the chance to look at any other actual right-backs during James’ absence this month, which would indicate a door that remains there to be opened.
Does, though, still feel like the question at the moment with TAA and the World Cup is not so much ‘Is he in the squad?’ but ‘How far away from the squad is he?’
31) Jack Grealish (35)
Could a great big grown-up year like 2026 really feature a good old-fashioned, full-throated Jack Grealish Clamour? It absolutely f*cking could, you know. We are so back.
32) Curtis Jones (25)
Remember when Tuchel started him over Trent Alexander-Arnold at right-back that time? That was a good bit. And people say Germans have no sense of humour.
33) Phil Foden (30)
The only way is down until something changes. And that change is going to have to be increasingly drastic while looking increasingly unlikely. Foden is currently destined for an absolute puzzle of an England career.
34) Jarell Quansah (49)
Has impressed for Bayer Leverkusen after a summer move Liverpool might live to regret to a fairly hefty degree, and was on the bench for the Wales game before being forced out of the squad to face Latvia by injury. Stones, Guehi and Konsa appear absolute certainties for the final squad, but there does look like being at least one centre-back spot – currently held by Dan Burn – for which competition at least still exists.
35) Nick Pope (47)
Playing Premier League and Champions League football – and playing them very well indeed apart from that costly 30-second wobble against Arsenal – while England’s third-choice goalkeeper rides the bench at Man City. Has to give him some chance, doesn’t it? And at the very least positions him as a non-panic-inducing option should some misfortune or other befall any of the three keepers currently ahead of him.
36) Trevoh Chalobah (32)
That Senegal game really did hurt a lot of chances for a lot of players.
37) Jarrad Branthwaite (34)
You do occasionally just get those players where, for no apparent rhyme or reason, international football just passes them by. With each passing international break the fear grows that Branthwaite really could find himself alongside Steve Bruce on Sporcle quizzes 15 years from now.
38) Dominic Solanke (36)
Permanently injured, which really doesn’t help your chances of an international recall. Yet a glance around the Premier League reveals just how little Solanke might have to do for Spurs if/when he does recover from injury to find his way back into the England frame should Ollie Watkins or, heaven help us all, Harry Kane get injured.
39) Luke Shaw (37)
Almost ever-present for Man United this year, but might actually be higher up this Ladder if he’d just simply been injured again. As it is, his very apparent availability and continued absence from Thomas Tuchel’s squad tells a pretty clear story for a man whose final England appearance now looks increasingly likely to be the Euro 2024 final.
The fact he plays as the left of three centre-backs for United also doesn’t help his dwindling international recall hopes given his way in to a Tuchel squad would surely be at left-back.
However, he cannot yet be entirely discounted purely due to doubts around other options. Newcastle pair Tino Livramento and Lewis Hall are both currently injured, and Lewis-Skelly is desperately short of minutes for Arsenal.
It really might not take many more misfortunes to befall England’s left-backs before Shaw finds himself back in the fold.
40) Ivan Toney (40)
Still technically the most recent striker called up by Tuchel that isn’t Kane or Watkins, so technically we guess still third choice there? We should probably put him a place or two higher, really, given the rules. But just can’t quite bring ourselves to do so.
41. Lewis Hall (44)
42. Levi Colwill (38)
43. Conor Gallagher (29)
44. Kyle Walker (39)
45. Kobbie Mainoo (33)
46. Harvey Elliott (45)
47. Ethan Nwaneri (46)
48. Aaron Ramsdale (43)
49. Harry Maguire (48)
50. Phil Neville (50)
