{"id":863353,"date":"2026-03-31T20:57:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T20:57:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/863353\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T20:57:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T20:57:20","slug":"england-fans-think-three-players-have-played-themselves-out-of-2026-world-cup-squad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/863353\/","title":{"rendered":"England fans think three players have played themselves out of 2026 World Cup squad"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fans think three players have potentially played themselves out of World Cup contention with their performances in England’s 1-0 defeat against Japan.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thomas Tuchel’s side produced an underwhelming display at Wembley in their final international friendly at home before the World Cup<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The German selected a 35-player squad ahead of the international break, with the aim to allow players rest after the first friendly against Uruguay.<\/p>\n

He therefore named a much-changed starting XI against Japan, with some enforced chances to his planned squad caused by the withdrawals of eight players between matches.<\/p>\n

It was the visitors, who are ranked number 19 in the world, who opened the scoring on 23 minutes through Brighton winger Kaoru Mitoma.<\/p>\n

The goal came via a counter-attack, with Reims forward Keito Nakamura cutting the ball across the box for Mitoma to finish well past Jordan Pickford into the bottom right corner.<\/p>\n

Japan posed a threat going forward throughout, and it took England<\/a> until the 77-minute mark to register their first shot on target of the match.<\/p>\n

Tuchel had earlier made wholesale changes on the hour mark, with Cole Palmer, Phil Foden – who lined up in a false nine role – Ben White and Nico O’Reilly all being taken off as the manager added fresh legs.<\/p>\n

Palmer and Foden, in particular, came in for heavy criticism among England fans on social media, while the performances of White – who likely wouldn’t have been on the plane to the United States in any case – also wasn’t well-received.<\/p>\n

\"ColeCole Palmer and Phil Foden struggled against Japan (Image: Getty)<\/p>\n

One wrote: “Not a chance Palmer and Foden should be anywhere near the World Cup squad. Terrible.”<\/p>\n

A second said: “Foden and Palmer making the case louder that they need rest from June 12 to July 20.”<\/p>\n

A third stated: “Phil Foden should NOT be on that plane to the World Cup! I don’t know how he keeps getting into these squads.”<\/p>\n

A fourth added: “Phil Foden and Cole Palmer have been awful tonight. Been awful all season. They shouldn’t be in the England squad for the World Cup.”<\/p>\n

A fifth, meanwhile, wrote: “Ben White performance enhanced Trent’s chances. Terrible in the attacking third and not even good defensively.”<\/p>\n

While a sixth stated: “Hopefully that’s the end of Ben White for England. Absolutely dreadful.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fans think three players have potentially played themselves out of World Cup contention with their performances in England’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":863354,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5008],"tags":[748,393,9682,94,4884,2122,6573,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-863353","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-england","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-fan-reactions","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-japan","14":"tag-thomas-tuchel","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116325793616796144","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=863353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/863354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=863353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=863353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=863353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}