The Jordan Henderson England recall anger begins as gloom sets in ahead of World Cup 2026

The first England squad of Thomas Tuchel has inspired precious little confidence. And Liverpool must ‘cancel’ a lucrative sponsorship deal ‘immediately’.

Send your thoughts to theeditor@football365.com.

You know the drill
Looking forward to the inevitable ‘Tuchel Out’ messages (effectively) before a ball has even been kicked because some people won’t have the exact subs bench they desire.
Chris, Stourbridge

Agent Tuchel
Jordan. F**king. Henderson.

In for his alleged leadership skills. Certainly looked like a great leader at Ajax after being made captain. Then trying to force his way out of the club in January to move to Monaco for free even though he has a contract till 2026. Tells the club if they don’t let him leave he’ll refuse to play. Has captains armband taken away. Changes his mind and stays at Ajax.

Oh and all the Saudi sh**t.

Not the kind of leader I’d want.
Will (He cannot be in the squad for his footballing ability, that’s now as bad as his leadership qualities)

READ MORE: Tuchel insists Henderson ’embodies’ England as Rashford fired ‘old routines’ warning after recall

Point 7 in your 16 conclusions is absolutely hilarious and ridiculous. Reading it, you would think the general public is still reeling from the fact that Henderson ‘betrayed’ the alphabet people. The only people that care are the activists, Guardian journalists and yourselves. Step outside of your bubble and enter the real world.
G Thomas, Breda

Sprinkle of magic stardust
Scanning through the new era England squad didn’t fill me with glee at all.

The Americas World Cup will be a tough one for all the European squads (super hot temperatures again after a gruelling, injury plagued season) but ours doesn’t look outstanding. So some magic dust is needed from the highly paid manager. He has to pull a few rabbits out of a few hats.

Will Henderson take over from Jordan the Toffee fingered one? Can Mings oust Stones? How to get Jude, Foden, Rice, Curtis Jones, Cole Palmer, Morgan Rogers to mesh. Will Saka ever be up to the same levels again? Can Reece James become a midfielder at international level?
Are Wharton and Gordon tournament quality?

If Kane is not mobile enough what is the alternative? Foden as a false nine? Ollie is an option I suppose. Will there be a Micheal Owen style late burst into the reckoning?

The only way I see glory is by the others all being a bit meh.

Well at least they’ll sell ‘kin beer.
Peter.  ( title 6 pointer Atleti v Barca right after the Milk Cup final ) Andalucia .

MORE REACTION TO TUCHEL’S FIRST ENGLAND SQUAD FROM F365
👉 16 Conclusions on Tuchel’s first England squad: Henderson, Rashford in, Forest, LGBTQ+ ignored
👉 The worst England squad take? ‘Tuchel has gone for experience over youth in direct contrast to Southgate’

Chelsengland squad
No surprise the England squad has a few Chelsea players in it. James over Spence this season though? What more does poor Djed have to do?! He is the first choice left AND right back for Spurs (granted that’s not hard this season!), but he has been a shining light in a somewhat poor season.

Would have been good to see Archie Gray in the squad but his time will come when he moves back to his natural position.
Lee, forever hopeful Spurs will turn good! Sunny Plymouth

United good, VAR bad
– He rightly gets stick when he flaps around and shoots his gob off, but Bruno Fernandes has quietly been absolutely incredible over the past couple of months. That performance was genuinely excellent and he deserves recognition as one of Europe’s elite in this form.

– It was ‘just’ Sociedad, but that was the best performance at Old Trafford in years. And for me, without half the first choice XI. In a time of endless negativity, I’ll take that. The fans, the team, the energy and the desire were all on display.

– Hojlund didn’t score but finally put in a good centre forward performance. It’s not the goals he clearly needs but again, we’ll take it. Special mention for Heaven – a kid making his European debut, Dorgu, Zirkzee and Mazza who were superb.

– All that gushing aside, what the hell are we doing with VAR and penalties? For my money, maybe the Dorgu one is a pen, but even that could be waved on. The first two tonight and the one in Spain are not penalties in a sport I want to watch. None of them would have been given before VAR. All required upwards of 4 minutes of slow motion, frame-by-frame analysis. I suppose all could be argued to be ‘technically correct’ – like Alvarez’s double-shot in the Madrid match. It’s all garbage though. This is not the sport we love. I’d rather be wrong than have this be right.

– And so, for those that missed it, the highlight of the evening. With the match still very much in the balance, Dorgu was tackled – well – and a penalty was given. Dorgu told the ref it wasn’t a penalty. He was honest. After almost 180 minutes of Sociedad feigning injury, cheating, diving and being the absolute worst, he rose above it. I absolutely loved it.

– So where from here? Mainoo, Ugarte, Yoro and likely Mount walk into that team, and might actually be available soon. Can Amorim put some decent results together in the league? Gotta hope so.
Ryan, Bermuda (That ref – with a reputation – gave out 10 yelllows, a red, and 3 penalties in a match that basically had no bad tackles. What have we become?!)

No excuses
I figured, since I’ve generally criticised his performances over the season so far, it was appropriate to write in to applaud this good one from Bruno.

Yes, finally he delivered an all round performance – albeit one inevitably boosted by the two penalties. Bravo! Alleluia!

Now let’s see if he can follow that up with the same team-gelling performance against Leicester, Forest and City.

And of course he wasn’t alone, which also helped.

The ball was played across to Højlund exactly as it should be, who won the first penalty. Those are exactly the passes that have been missing so far, that likely either end in a goal, an own goal or a penalty. And we got dividends as a result. Who knew?

Zirkzee was excellent throughout, with some great touches and link up with Højlund who was alert but unlucky to miss his flick. Zirkzee’s pass for Dorgu earned the red card. And even Garnacho was aware enough to pass to Dorgu and Bruno on the overlap, that created two chances and one goal.

Højlund was able to add to a good performance with a great bit of play to tee up Dalot for a solid finish. Maybe Dalot will take note on crossing after this and return the favour?

Either way, a benchmark performance has been achieved at long last, with Bruno at the heart but absolutely not alone.

So now they have shown they can do it. There’s no excuses against Leicester.
Badwolf

Give footballers’ wages to former footballers
Lot of headlines about Uniteds finances, 40k to ex players stopped, lunches for staff stopped, redundancies etc. And ratcliffe and Glazers getting the flack – the Glazers deserve it to be fair.

But you know what really boils my p*ss, the likes of Mount and Shaw who havent kicked a ball in 2 seasons and yet more than happy to pick up 250k a week each. How hard would it have been for them to say ‘you know what, we’ll cover that 40k and ive not contributed for 2yrs so I’ll take a couple of weeks hit on my wages’ and use that for staff and ex players.

The rot at United lays firmly at the playing side of things, over paid, over entitled spoilt prima donnas that arent prepared to dig in and help the club out – its that mentality that has left them screwed.
Antony

Outsung?
I’ve been licking my wounds for a few days after the loss on Tuesday night, and have only now returned to the internet.  I’m shocked to hear Liverpool fans were out sung given that a) I lost my voice, and b) it was a “proper” night at Anfield.

I’m guessing those suggesting PSG out sung our fans were a) not there, and b) commenting on the sound engineering on Prime.

It was a great game of football, played in front of passionate fans, with a disappointing end.  But it’s still going to be a truly memorable season.
Rob

Calling out wrongs
Liverpool have just announced a sponsorship deal with the Maldives tourism board, owned by the Maldives government. CEO and managing director of “Visit Maldives” has commented how happy they are partnering with a club like Liverpool who share their “core values”

I would like the club to cancel this immediately and make it clear they do not support their “core values”

More than 1 in 10 girls suffer female genital mutilation in the Maldives, they do not have laws against it. They do have some laws though, for example the criminalise homosexuality… only a good lashing as punishment though.

All the work Liverpool do in the community, all the support they profess to have for marginalised groups…. but for a minor sponsorship, none of that matters.

Liverpool supporters(such as myself) will be quick to judge the source of other club’s finances and the questionable values of their owners, they should hold the same standard to ours.

All Liverpool supporters should let the club know how they feel about this and force them into ditching this sponsorship…. or confirming they do share “core values”
Liam(disappointed)

Spending
I’ve seen a lot of opinions in the media about how Arsenal have spent X amount of money whereas Liverpool have only spent Y amount and are likely going to win the league despite not buying any players, leaving Arsenal to finish 2nd again. What is lost in all this is the relative starting point of the 2 squads. Liverpool have challenged for 2 years, then fell away,  but the core of the squad is pretty much still there.

Arsenal had to start with a lot lower quality squad, the best players are not going to be queuing up to join a team who finished 8th, they needed players to get them higher up the table,  once there, the next level of players are needed to take the next step. And so on and so forth, so of course Arsenal are going to spend more, you don’t go from racing go karts to racing formula 1 in one step.  Yes they fell short this year, it just means the next level of players are needed.
Andrew Goonerabroad Brown 

The Alvarez penalty
After watching the Madrid game I think everyone (except Madrid fans) can agree that was a super sh*t decision.

What I can’t understand is even if the penalty was invalid, why wasn’t he allowed to retake it? For example if an offensive player encroaches as the penalty is taken they are told to retake it. Why wasn’t Alvarez allowed to?

Anyway I think personally the best thing going forward is to have a challenge system each manager gets three challenges to a decision , if the ref reviews the decision and decides the challenge is correct they don’t lose one of their challenges. If it’s incorrect then one challenge is deducted. Anyone complaining gets an immediate yellow card and the only person allowed to complain is the manager IF he is challenging a decision. Otherwise he gets an immediate yellow too.

This will cut down on the constant VAR interruptions as they will only happen during a challenge, it will cut down on player complaints as only the manager will be allowed too and it will allow the game to flow more.
Lee

Spanish clean sweep
A Spanish team will win the Champions League and we may even get a first superclassico final.

Bilbao have a bye to the Europa League semi final and then play the semi 2nd leg and the final at home. Looks like a shoe in.

Chelsea are best placed to stop all 3 trophies going to Spain but it really does depend a lot on whether they turn up to a potential final with Betis or not.

The Spanish league has been by far the best league in Europe over the last 25 years with the best players and the best football. 11 Champions Leagues to England’s 6 in that time period and 12 to 4 Europa Leagues. Its not even a contest. All 4 England v Spain Champions league finals in the last 25 years were won by the Spanish side. English teams have lost 6 European finals in a row to Spanish teams (Madrid x2 Barca x2 Villareal and Sevilla)

It’s embarassing to hear delusional English football pundits being paid to lie about the premier league’s status in European football. It’s time for a little more humility and a lot more honesty. There’s nothing wrong with coming 2nd.
Ben

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