Why Morgan Gibbs-White should be among Tuchel’s first picks in England attack

“It makes no sense to nominate three, four, five no.10s,” said Thomas Tuchel last Friday while trying to justify the decision that made least sense of all: the omission of England’s most in-form playmaker, Morgan Gibbs-White.

Tuchel’s point was invalidated by the squad list on the desk before him. For four Nations League fixtures, he had picked four no.10s – Jude Bellingham, Morgan Rogers, Cole Palmer and Eberechi Eze – with Gibbs-White only bumped up from fifth because Palmer is busy managing his load for the next few weeks.

Tuchel is making a habit of this with Gibbs-White.

“He phoned me up and said ‘are you still upset with me, or do you want to come and join us and fancy training tomorrow?’” That was in March 2025 when Palmer’s pull-out prompted a belated call-up for Gibbs-White into Tuchel’s first England squad.

The conversation on Sunday must have gone along similar lines and it is to Gibbs-White’s credit that he didn’t make it more awkward for the England manager. There are only so many snubs any player can take and Tuchel must be on the limit with the Nottingham Forest star.

Lesser characters would have told Tuchel to stick it, or simply ignored his call, especially when it was received in Dubai where Gibbs-White had just touched down for a family break.

His willingness to fly straight back, contrasting sharply with some of Tuchel’s other picks, ought to be rewarded with more prominence than the England boss has been previously willing to offer a player still waiting for a first senior international start.

But Gibbs-White deserves to be in the England squad on merit and not just to fill the good egg berth.

Through the early part of this season and the second half of the last one, Gibbs-White is the in-form English no.10. If it is fair to pigeon-hole him as such.

He played off the left side while doing more than most since February to keep Forest in the Premier League and, this term, he has operated as one of two 10s for Oliver Glasner.

Given Tuchel’s fondness for Morgan Rogers and the positional parallels between the Midlands-born pair, Gibbs-White cannot be paying for his versatility. That makes him a bigger asset.

Across both roles, no midfielder in Europe’s top five leagues has scored more goals than Gibbs-White in 2026. With 13, he has more than doubled Rogers’ half-dozen, while also outscoring Michael Olise (12), Cole Palmer (9), Scott McTominay (8) and Bruno Fernandes (7). This year, he has the same number of goals as Erling Haaland. Ridiculous.

Gibbs-White is creating them too. He has two assists to his name so far but only Pascal Gross (15) has created more chances than the 14 carved out by Gibbs-White in the Premier League this season.

Indeed, according to our friends at Gradient Sports, Gibbs-White is graded as the best for crossing among all attacking midfielders, wingers and centre-forwards, with only Fernandes, Rayan Cherki and Martin Odegaard graded higher for passing and pressured passing. No one has played as many ‘big-time passes’ and only four players have played more passes above expectation.

There are other similarities with the top 10s, Fernandes especially, which may offer some insight as to why Tuchel is so reluctant to offer Gibbs-White the opportunity he clearly deserves.

A report in the Daily Mail more than a year ago suggested Tuchel had ‘lingering doubts’ over Gibbs-White’s tendency to take too many risks on the ball and concede possession too easily.

Even if it were true then, it certainly no longer stands up to scrutiny.

Of English attacking midfielders, wingers and strikers, only Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall (185) has attempted more passes than Gibbs-White (172 passes, 86.6% completed), while only Joe Willock (112 passes, 91.1% completed) and Tyrique George (103 passes, 90.3% completed) have a better passing accuracy. Willock and George are the only ones to have completed a higher percentage of passes under pressure too.

So Gibbs-White has made more passes and completed a higher percentage than Palmer (161 passes, 80.7% completed), Rogers (134 passes, 79.1% completed) and Eze (39 passes, 79.4% completed).

Forest fans could not fathom what more their talisman could have done to go to the World Cup, and that befuddlement spread far beyond the East Midlands when Tuchel named his squad last Friday.

Now he’s there, the England boss must open his mind to the possibility that he’s got Gibbs-White all wrong.