Gary Neville believes there has been ‘turbulence’ within Thomas Tuchel’s England starting XI for the Panama encounter. The former Manchester United defender highlighted specific worries surrounding Jarell Quansah’s deployment at right-back following the injury that has sidelined Reece James for the fixture.
James is set to remain unavailable unless England reach the tournament’s final stages after fellow right-back Tino Livramento withdrew from the squad through injury. Tuchel opted to replace the Newcastle man with a centre-half rather than a direct replacement, summoning Trevoh Chalobah into the group.
Djed Spence remains the sole dedicated specialist in that role, though has been deployed predominantly on the left by the German manager. The Tottenham defender is named among the substitutes against Panama, however.
Tuchel has shown faith in Quansah as part of five alterations with England already assured of progression to the round of 32. The Three Lions must still secure first place in Group L, with Tuchel leaning on greater squad rotation than he likely envisaged for the World Cup.
Neville doubts whether Quansah can be utilised in that position during the knockout rounds and has voiced his reservations about Tuchel’s options to cover the role. “He’s making a lot of changes to it,” Neville said of the starting XI. “He [Tuchel] said before the tournament that he wanted 14 or 15 starters and he’s on starter number 17 already.
“The one position I think I am pretty qualified to speak on is right back and if you had said to me a couple of months ago that Quansah would be playing right-back for England in a tournament, I would say something has gone badly wrong.” The five-word response tells you everything you need to know about his opinion.
“He’s picked Reece James and Livramento, players who are injury prone. He’s not brought Trent Alexander-Arnold, who obviously is someone with world class quality, for what reasons we can only imagine. That is where we are right now, England will win this group and win this game but there is some turbulence in there.
“Djed Spence is the only real option at right-back,” he continued. “Quansah is not an option going into the games further into the tournament, so I think the reasons he has probably done it today are he is thinking ‘look, we can handle Panama, Quansah can play there, and Spence can come in for the 32’.”
Roy Keane added: “When you start getting into knockout games, you don’t want a jack of all trades. You need masters at these positions. That would be the worry going forward.”