Dropped Man Utd duo in form-based England squad with five new call-ups

Our England squad based on grades so far this season sees three veteran defenders recalled and five new call-ups including a duo thriving in France.

Thomas Tuchel selected his England squad for the upcoming Nations League clashes with Croatia and Spain, with Cole Palmer’s omissions among the most controversial calls.

Tuchel has not picked his party solely on form – which is fair enough.

But we have. With a 26-man England squad based on Gradient Sports’ player grades throughout the season so far.

Across a vast range of metrics, Gradient grades every player out of 100, measuring execution and outcome of the most important skills and facets for each position group. More on that process here.

Here is the England squad featuring the highest-graded players.

Goalkeepers

Dean Henderson (Crystal Palace) – 76.4
Henderson’s grading – the fifth-highest in the Premier League – suggests the Palace skipper was desperately unlucky to miss out on Tuchel’s squad, especially since Jason Steele is yet to make a league appearance this season. But our friends at Gradient say 60 per cent of the goals he has conceded were saveable.

Jordan Pickford (Everton) – 61.8
Pickford is just below Henderson for saveable goals conceded (55.6%) and 16 keepers in the Premier League are graded higher than England’s No.1 this season as Thomas Tuchel begins to consider other potential options, especially…

James Trafford (Leeds United) – 61.1
Trafford has been a hit in his first few months at Leeds after a lost year at Manchester City. The 24-year-old has conceded eight goals (only two clubs have conceded fewer) from an xGA of 12.45.

Defenders

Harry Maguire (Manchester United) – 83.7
Maguire is the seventh-highest graded centre-back across the top five European leagues and second-highest in the Premier League after Jan Paul van Hecke. But Tuchel is unlikely to pick up the phone after the fall-out from the United defender’s World Cup omission.

Eric Dier (Monaco) – 81.3
The fifth-highest graded defender in Ligue 1 was ever-present in Monaco’s six-game unbeaten run at the start of the season. They lost the first game the 32-year-old missed.

Lewis Dunk (Brighton) – 80.2
Doubtless Dunk would be graded higher than anyone in Europe if Gradient had a chest backpass metric. There was speculation that the Brighton skipper was in line for a recall after a fine start to the season, but Tuchel seems put off by the fact Dunk will be 35 just after this international break.

Jarell Quansah (Bayer Leverkusen) – 79.9
Tuchel is clearly a bag fan of the seventh-highest graded defender in the Bundesliga this season.

Marc Guehi (Manchester City) – 79.3
Guehi was ropey in the last break, especially against Spain, but it had just emerged that the club he joined earlier in the year were guilty of all that cheating.

Trent Alexander-Arnold (Real Madrid) – 78.7
It took a while for Tuchel to be sold on Trent but it seems the Real star has won over his international manager. Unsurprisingly, Alexander-Arnold is graded second for crossing among La Liga defenders but 56th for one-v-one defending.

Lewis Hall (Newcastle) – 77.0
Despite Newcastle’s struggles of late, their left-back’s form has him in the Premier League team of the season so far.

Archie Gray (Tottenham Hotspur) – 73.5
We feared Gray’s ascension from the Under-21s to the senior squad might be hampered by his versatility and the lack of opportunities to play in what everyone thought was his natural position: central midfield. But on this season’s form, perhaps he is a right-back after all.

Midfielders

Jude Bellingham (Real Madrid) – 89.9
The second-highest graded midfielder in Europe this season. Which makes us wonder: how f***ing good must Toulouse’s Cristian Cassares be?

Elliot Anderson (Manchester City) – 88.5
The Premier League’s highest-graded midfielder, just above…

Declan Rice (Arsenal) – 87.9
To suggest Rice is among Arsenal’s greatest-ever midfielders is a big shout, but can anyone really argue? Combining his grade with his impact score, Gradient ranks Rice as Europe’s best.

Josh King (Fulham) – 81.5
Perhaps unlucky to miss out on the last squad, King now has his first senior call-up. At the expense of…

Kobbie Mainoo (Manchester United) – 80.6
Mainoo has the sixth-highest grade among Premier League midfielders and the highest for ball control. It’s just a pity that when he looks up, there’s not a United team-mate wanting the ball.

Tyler Morton (Lyon) – 78.3
Morton has been consistently impressive for Lyon as a deep-lying midfielder. So much so, Liverpool are said to be keen to re-sign him.

Conor Gallagher (Tottenham Hotspur) – 77.8
Despite being consistently linked with a move away, Roberto De Zerbi clearly trusts Gallagher and the Spurs boss is not a man who trusts easily. Tuchel is proving harder to win over and the chances are that his most recent cap in the defeat to Senegal in summer 2025 might be his last.

James Garner (Everton) – 77.1
High praise indeed from Tuchel when he called Garner England’s ‘mini-Valverde’. Neither are rated as highly as they ought to be, but the England boss seems more clued up than most over the Everton midfielder’s quality.

Forwards

Harry Kane (Bayern Munich) – 88.4
How has Kane won the Ballon d’Or while having scored precisely zero proper goals for England?

Anthony Gordon (Barcelona) – 82.2
It’s barely five months since we were all arguing over who should play on the left for England: Gordon or Marcus Rashford? Now it’s not even up for debate.

Morgan Gibbs-White (Nottingham Forest) – 80.8
Gibbs-White’s form has not been his best this season, but Tuchel clearly appreciates the Forest skipper passing up a family holiday to accept a late call-up as Cole Palmer’s replacement during the last break.

MORE: Tuchel aims seven-word ‘attitude’ dig at Palmer as England mask slips

Samuel Amo-Ameyaw (Strasbourg)- 75.4
The 20-year-old Hackney-born winger was once the youngest player to play in the Premier League for Southampton but, these days, he is catching the eye in Ligue 1 with Strasbourg. The Chelsea bench beckons.

Morgan Rogers (Chelsea) – 74.9
The Chelsea star is in the team of the season so far, not just for his goals (six scored, four created in all competitions) but also his graft, with Rogers in the top 10 for distance covered in the Premier League this season.

Marcus Tavernier (Bournemouth) – 74.2
Tavernier was another rumoured to be in line for a call-up, but not this time. The Bournemouth attacker is graded highest in the Premier League for free-kick shooting and unpressured shooting. If it wasn’t for defenders…