Why has Bellingham, officially England’s best player, been dropped?

Last Wednesday, Jude Bellingham was named England’s men’s Player of the Year for 2024-25. Less than 48 hours later, he was dropped.

England manager Thomas Tuchel explained the decision by pointing to the player’s lack of game time at Real Madrid after undergoing shoulder surgery in the summer — Bellingham, 22, has started just one game in four appearances this season and has yet to complete 90 minutes — but scratch the surface of that explanation, and a more complicated picture emerges.

Tuchel has repeatedly stressed the lack of time he has to work with his team before next year’s FIFA World Cup finals, heightening the need to bring key players together as often as possible. He also described September’s camp as the best of his tenure, believing the 5-0 thrashing of Serbia in a World Cup qualifier in Belgrade was the product of a positive and focused nine days together.

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Tuchel opted to retain almost all of the players from that group when October’s squad was announced, replacing the injured Noni Madueke with his Arsenal teammate Bukayo Saka, and including Jarell Quansah and Ruben Loftus-Cheek from the outset after drafting them in last month following withdrawals. Saka, incidentally, has not completed 90 minutes for Arsenal since the opening weekend of the season.

“Team spirit is the key factor in the end,” Tuchel said last week. “We want to go to the tournament, we have to qualify first.

“We want to develop something special and I truly believe the fans can feel there is a team out there that loves to play for each other, that loves to run for each other, that is there to give everything.

“That was clearly visible in the match against Serbia, so now it is on us to follow up on that and for that we didn’t take any chances. We took a very straightforward decision to go with the same group of players.”

But that “straightforward” decision included leaving out officially England’s best player of the last year, prompting the question: Is there more going on?

Experimenting with alternatives

Tuchel was asked directly if England can win the World Cup without Bellingham. He chose to reframe the argument.

“Do I believe we are a stronger team with Jude? Yes,” he replied. “Is he one of the best players in the world in midfield? Yes. But I told you last time when he was injured: what will we do if a player like Jude is injured before the World Cup? Do we then cancel? Do we not travel?

“This is a team sport. Everyone has a particular role and it can happen right in front of the tournament and then we have to find solutions. It can never be the solution to depend on one player in football.”

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Bellingham is a stunningly gifted footballer, and it seems inconceivable that he would not be part of England’s starting lineup at the World Cup. Curiously, England have won 26 of 42 games with Bellingham in the team, but without him that record improves to 13 wins, 6 draws and just 1 defeat.

In Bellingham’s favor is his unmatched ability within the England squad to bend a game to his will. There are arguably only a handful of players in the world who possess his combination of match-winning talents. He must, however, maintain a level of performance, and it is clear that Tuchel is prepared to calibrate his thinking by giving at least equal weight to what players deliver in an England shirt as opposed to what they do for their clubs. Taking Tuchel’s argument at face value, he is of course right to assert that England need to identify alternatives were Bellingham to suffer an injury.

Tuchel has so far preferred a 4-2-3-1 system, and Morgan Rogers was excellent against Serbia as England’s No. 10. Rogers’ intelligence with the ball and industry without it makes him a strong candidate, and he is likely to continue when Wales visit Wembley on Thursday for a friendly. Morgan Gibbs-White is a possible alternative, as perhaps is Loftus-Cheek, but it is surprising given Tuchel’s reasoning for Bellingham’s omission that Phil Foden was also left out. Foden was often pushed out to the wing under ex-coach Gareth Southgate to accommodate Bellingham, but only last month his boss at Manchester City, Pep Guardiola, reiterated a widely held view that the 25-year-old is at his best when playing centrally.

England midfielder Jude Bellingham has not been called up by manager Thomas Tuchel for the national team’s October fixtures despite recently returning to play for Real Madrid. ADAM VAUGHAN/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Opting not to use Foden is even stranger when considering another obvious selection, Cole Palmer, is unavailable through injury. The Chelsea playmaker is absent with a groin problem and his rapid rise at Stamford Bridge has only advanced his case for a starting spot next summer, after coming off the bench to score in last summer’s Euro 2024 final defeat to Spain, Southgate’s final game in charge.

Sources have told ESPN that Tuchel has also considered using Bellingham alongside Harry Kane as split strikers in a 4-4-2 shape, mindful of England’s lack of elite quality in the No. 6 position. Elliot Anderson’s impressive performances against Andorra and Serbia offer encouragement that Tuchel could yet solve that problem, freeing the manager up to play Declan Rice alongside Anderson and then pick four attack-minded options ahead of him in a 4-2-3-1 system.

Squad dynamic

This is where things gets tricky, because the assertion that last month’s camp was the best under Tuchel in terms of camaraderie by implication casts a degree of doubt over those who were absent.

“I think the last camp was the best I’ve been part of, to be honest,” winger Anthony Gordon told ESPN. “In terms of just the vibe of the camp, everyone seemed really happy, really content. On the pitch, we put in probably our best performance and it seemed like everything just clicked on and off the pitch.

“So it doesn’t surprise me that the same team has been called up, but we can’t be complacent and think that’s going to be fine from now on. We’ve got to better our levels again.”

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Tuchel explains Bellingham’s England squad omission

Thomas Tuchel explains why Jude Bellingham is not a part of his latest England squad.

Quansah has only been called up for six camps in total — and is yet to make his full England debut — but the former Liverpool defender agreed. “With all the squads here, we’ve always got a good team chemistry,” the Bayer Leverkusen defender told ESPN. “When you put together good performances it breeds a good positivity about the camp.

“The September camp can be tough, with the start of the season, but the way we performed in that … everyone saw how good it was. And that builds positivity and a strong team chemistry.”

There are no publicly documented cases of Bellingham being involved in any issues within the camp. Tuchel pointedly insisted there was “no problem” between him and Bellingham, Foden or Jack Grealish, for that matter, after the trio were left out of his latest squad. However, sources have told ESPN that some relationships within the group were strained during last summer’s run to the Euro 2024 final. Bellingham was seen shouting angrily in Southgate’s direction as the game threatened to slip away from them.

UEFA Group K

GPPTSGD1 – England515+132 – Albania58+23 – Serbia47-14 – Latvia54-45 – Andorra50-101 qualifies / 2 in playoffs

Southgate admitted after the final that he would have taken Bellingham off for extra time had the squad not fallen behind with Mikel Oyarzabal‘s goal in the 86th minute.

More pertinently, Tuchel publicly criticized elements of Bellingham’s behavior in a radio interview in June when he said: “If he smiles, he wins everyone. But sometimes you see the rage and the fire, and it comes out in a way that can be a bit repulsive.”

Tuchel later apologized — with the valid mitigation that he was speaking in a second language — but the German effectively chose to double down on the Bellingham issue by leaving him out this month.

As former England international Gary Neville, later part of the national team’s coaching staff under Roy Hodgson, said: “He’s definitely sending him a message. If you think about England managers over the last 20, 30 years, they always get their star players back in, even if they haven’t played a game just to get them back in amongst it.

“So it is a message to Jude Bellingham. I don’t think he’ll take it any other way. They are enough signals we have seen in Thomas Tuchel’s press conferences to know he isn’t scared to make a tough decision. There are obviously things that he doesn’t like — not just about Jude Bellingham but other players as well, and he’s thinking, ‘I’m going to send them a message.'”

So, it’s up to Bellingham to respond during his time with Real Madrid.

Bellingham’s cameo as a substitute in Saturday’s 3-1 win over Villarreal prior to the international break was a mixed bag. The view that there is a mini-preseason over this fortnight could be exactly what he needs to regain his best form for a big month at Real, including a UEFA Champions League clash with Juventus before the season’s first Clásico against Barcelona on Oct. 26 (stream LIVE at 1:15 p.m. ET on ESPN+ in the U.S.). Bellingham’s Madrid teammate Kylian Mbappé, meanwhile, will join up with France for the international break despite suffering an ankle sprain shortly after scoring his side’s third goal against Villarreal.

Gordon said: “You definitely notice when he [Bellingham] is not here because he’s such a big presence and such a big player, but I think he’s been injured, he’s had a tough couple of months. It has probably done him some good, to be honest. He’s played so much football for his age. It’s mad. He’s younger than me, it’s crazy. He’s played so much football and he’s only just done his shoulder so it gives him time to build a rhythm up and start playing again.

“I think we all know if he’s playing week in, week out for Real Madrid,” Gordon said, “he’s going to be in the England team.”

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