Thomas Tuchel axes three players from England squad to face Albania | Football

Thomas Tuchel has left Morgan Gibbs-White, Jarell Quansah and Aaron Ramsdale out the England squad that will face Albania.

The Three Lions begin a new era and a World Cup qualifying campaign at Wembley this evening under their new German head coach.

Tuchel initially selected 26 players last week, but UEFA rules state that a matchday squad can only be comprised of 23 men.

One goalkeeper was always likely to be dropped, given the former Chelsea boss picked four last week and Ramsdale has missed the cut.

It is, perhaps, no surprise that Quansah has been left out given the other defensive options available to Tuchel but the omission of Gibbs-White is likely to raise eyebrows.

The Nottingham Forest midfielder would have felt aggrieved at having failed to make the initial squad given his outstanding form for his club this season.

Gibbs-White belatedly got the call last week after Cole Palmer was forced to pull out due to a muscle injury, but the 25-year-old will play no part this evening.

Ahead of his first game in charge, meanwhile, Tuchel attempted to extinguish talk of the jersey weighing heavy and, like predecessor Gareth Southgate, indicated that England need to earn the right to be considered among the best given they are not ‘serial winners’.

‘The tradition for the national team is not to win and we have to maybe accept that once we arrive in America maybe we are not the favourites,’ Tuchel said.

‘Maybe we are kind of the underdogs and we embrace this role and make the best of it, because there are more stars on the shirts of Brazil, the likes of Germany, Spain recently.

‘They have more success so we are maybe not the favourites just because we all play in the best league and maybe have a lot of titles within this league.

‘There is no rule that we cannot make it from the role of an underdog. This can maybe help us to change the perception a little bit. That we don’t arrive and say that if we don’t win it is a complete disaster.’

Right now, it is about starting qualification with a bang against Albania.

‘We have a full Wembley, it will be very exciting,’ Tuchel added. ‘I will be bit nervous, I guess and that’s part of it. I’m always a bit nervous before matches, so this will not be different.’

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