A couple of uncapped Everton players have been backed to force their way into Thomas Tuchel’s England World Cup plans
A couple of uncapped Everton players have been backed to force their way into Thomas Tuchel’s World Cup plans and potentially get themselves on the England flight to the tournament in North America this summer.
Although Jordan Pickford has been England number one since making his debut under previous manager Gareth Southgate in November 2017 and has been capped 81 times – more than doubling the previous record of a Three Lions player while with the Blues (Phil Jagielka, 40) – the goalkeeper remains the only current member of the Everton squad to be part of the national team set-up. On-loan Jack Grealish, the first £100million English footballer, has been capped 39 times and played in all five of England’s matches in the last World Cup finals in Qatar in 2022, but he hasn’t been picked since scoring his fourth international goal in a 3-1 win in Finland on October 13, 2024, under caretaker boss Lee Carsley and is now seemingly ruled out for the rest of the season following an operation on a stress fracture injury in his left foot.
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Michael Keane turned out for his country a dozen times between 2017-2020, captain James Tarkowski was capped twice by England in 2018 while fellow centre-back Jarrad Branthwaite, who has just returned to the side after eight months out with hamstring problems, made what remains his solitary Three Lions appearance to date as a substitute in the 3-0 friendly win over Bosnia & Herzegovina at St James’ Park on June 3, 2024. England manager Tuchel, whose previous deal had taken him to after the World Cup finals, but this week signed a new two-year contract to go beyond the 2028 European Championships which will be staged across the British Isles with Everton’s Hill Dickinson Stadium hosting five matches, has been in attendance at several key Premier League fixtures for the Blues this season.
After the German was spotted chatting to Everton players after their 1-0 win at Aston Villa last month, arguably their best result of the season so far given that the hosts had been triumphant in their previous 11 home matches, Moyes quipped: “I told Thomas that James (Garner) was Scottish really and I would be surprised if he could play for England! His name sounds Scottish, so that was it.
“No, we just had a chat about a few things. He’s been at a couple of games that we’ve won narrowly, so he’s a wee bit of our club mascot at the moment!”
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Indeed, Tuchel was also present for the Blues’ 1-0 win at Old Trafford when they became the first team to beat Manchester United in a Premier League game at their own ground after having a man sent off, and their most recent away match, the 2-1 comeback victory over Fulham when Moyes had half a dozen Englishmen in his starting line-up compared to just two for Marco Silva. One of those, the aforementioned Garner, has caught the eye, along with Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall who netted Everton’s equaliser at Craven Cottage before putting in the cross from a corner-kick for the winner courtesy of Bernd Leno’s own goal.
Speaking on Football Insider’s Inside Track podcast, Keith Wyness, who was Everton’s chief executive between 2004-09 and now runs a football consultancy advising elite clubs, said: “I think James Garner has got to be the one that has been really consistent. I also think he might have had an eye on Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall.
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“I know it’s a crowded space in the England squad, but those two have been outstanding performers and been consistent. Dewsbury-Hall has come back from an injury, of course, but Garner in particular has been really exceptional.
“I think that’s the one that he’s really come to have a look at. Those are the two Everton players that I think could be in his thinking for the summer coming up.
“I think if they finish with a good second half of the season, which they’re looking like they may well do, then they can well come into the reckoning.”