England Face Wales Friendly Before Heading to Latvia for World Cup Qualifiers
The Euro 2024 runners-up are set to play Wales in a friendly next Thursday, ahead of their World Cup qualifying match against Latvia five days later.
Jude Bellingham, who missed September’s England camp while recovering from shoulder surgery, has since returned to action with Real Madrid, featuring in four matches. Despite this, manager Thomas Tuchel has not included the 22-year-old in his 24-man squad for this month’s fixtures, just two days after Bellingham was named England men’s player of the year for 2024/25.
Bukayo Saka makes his return after sitting out September’s internationals with a hamstring injury, while Cole Palmer, Noni Madueke, and Tino Livramento are sidelined through injury. Trent Alexander-Arnold also remains unavailable, and Tuchel has once again left out Jack Grealish and Phil Foden.
“It was only three weeks since the last camp and the last win, the last performance, so the question was why not bring the same group in because they set the standard,” Tuchel explained. “Now it is about creating habits out of it. We have, unfortunately, two injuries at the moment with Tino and Noni, and we bring Bukayo Saka in to replace Noni. Jarell Quansah was a late call-up last time. He will stay in camp.”
England have started their World Cup qualifying campaign strongly, beating Andorra 2-0 last month before thrashing Serbia 5-0, making it five wins from five in their group.
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