Retirement, Championship, free agent: Where England XI from Ruben Loftus-Cheek’s last cap are now

Ruben Loftus-Cheek is back in the England squad after seven years in the international wilderness.

With Thomas Tuchel’s esoteric Ladder-scuppering approach to selection continuing on the back of a continued fascination with Jordan Henderson and picking Ivan Toney that time despite the former Brentford striker’s semi-retirement to Saudi walking football, who knows who could be next in line for a recall.

An obvious place to start would appear to be those guys who played alongside Loftus-Cheek on his last appearance for the Three Lions all those years ago.

It was a 3-0 win over the USA at Wembley and, well, a lot has happened since November 2018. An awful lot.

Jordan Pickford

Okay, not the most inspiring start in this attempt to highlight the ravages of time. It gets better, we promise.

Trent Alexander-Arnold

Now at Real Madrid, much to the chagrin of Liverpool supporters, but still struggling to find his way into England squads, about which Liverpool supporters are now rather more sanguine.

Ben Chilwell

Time-served member of the Chelsea Bomb Squad who serendipitously managed to secure a late-window move to the BlueCo player storage facility in Strasbourg.

Logically, he’s miles off a call-up, but given the apparent selection value being placed on ‘playing for Chelsea when Tuchel was there’ and England’s commitment to always having hundreds of right-backs but no left-backs, rule nothing out.

Michael Keane

Still an Everton regular who won the last of his international caps two years after this famous win over the Americans.

Lewis Dunk

A man who knows a thing or two about the international wilderness. Made his debut here against the USA but would not feature again for England for almost five years and was an unused member of Gareth Southgate’s Euro 2024 squad.

Fabian Delph

England’s captain that famous night in 2018 retired from professional football three years ago.

Harry Winks

Ran the England engine room for the first 70 minutes before handing responsibility over to Loftus-Cheek to steer it home. Now in the Championship with Leicester, which is now the standard route for homegrown Tottenham midfielders who don’t quite make it.

Dele

He was the future once but even in his Tottenham pomp Dele never quite cracked the international game. Now taking up residence on those lists of free agents your shambolic club can potentially sign to paper over the cracks of their transfer-window failure after leaving Italian club Como.

Jesse Lingard

Opened the scoring with the third of his six England goals, the last of which came against Andorra in World Cup qualifying four years ago to the very day. Spooky. Now in South Korea.

Jadon Sancho

Another season, another fresh start for Jadon Sancho. Last played for England almost four years ago, but maybe Aston Villa can do what Manchester United and Chelsea could not and turn Sancho’s obvious talent into consistent Premier League output.

Callum Wilson

Just one of the many perfectly capable strikers whose England career was reduced to fighting for scraps by the ongoing existence of Harry Kane. Made a goalscoring debut here, but would manage just one further international goal across eight further caps spread over the next five years.

Now to be found at West Ham, which nobody deserves.