England face Andorra on Saturday evening with a strong Three Lions squad having made the trip to Barcelona – and Thomas Tuchel will keep playing his big stars
Thomas Tuchel has warned there will be no special favours for any of England’s Club World Cup stars.
Tuchel insists he has not had a single phone call from any manager asking for players to be rested – and would ignore them anyway as he hinted some big-names might start back-to-back games.
England boss Tuchel intends to go as strong as possible to face World Cup minnows Andorra in Barcelona on Saturday and intends to use a few experiments against Senegal next Tuesday.
Three Lions captain Harry Kane, Real Madrid stars Jude Bellingham and Trent Alexander-Arnold Chelsea stars Reece James, Levi Colwill and Cole Palmer are all jetting off to the United States to play in the Club World Cup after England duty.
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But Tuchel said: “I said many times, I was like 15 years I think in club football, I think I have never asked an international coach what to do and how to use the players.
“We have very limited time for ourselves. We have our very own interest also to see a lot of the players that are in camp and maybe even all of the players that are in camp, so we have our own interest to mix the teams.
“But no coach has called me and there was no request from the FA that a club called to let the players go after to the Club World Cup.
“But it can also happen that some players start twice for us, but like I said, we also have an interest to see a lot of players in these two matches, so I think we will not in the end upset anyone.”
England face Andorra who are 173rd in the FIFA rankings at Espanyol’s ground in Barcelona and Tuchel made it clear that he still expects a big performance.
Tuchel added: “We demand a win and we demand a convincing win, one without doubts, this is what we demand. If you really demand this from yourself then it comes with responsibility and professionalism. It’s what I felt during this week.
“It comes down to yourself, to show you’re happy to be here, committed to what we are trying to build. This is exactly what I feel from the players.
“If the question is: ‘did I give any signals about if we didn’t train so well, but still you can play without taking it serious,’ then absolutely not. We will put the team on the field that deserves to play and is the right fit for this match.”
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