The England boss was transparent about his decision to stagger the integration of his most utilised players. He emphasised that the long-term health of the squad outweighed the immediate need for a full-strength lineup in the friendly.
"It's no secret. The players know: it's Dean Henderson, Dan Burn, Marc Guehi, Ezri Konsa, Nico O'Reilly, Elliot Anderson, Declan Rice, Morgan Rogers, Anthony Gordon, Harry Kane and Bukayo Saka," Tuchel explained last week.
“All of these guys have played 3,500-plus minutes, some of them have 4,000 minutes. More important than the pure number of minutes is that some of these guys have already played more than in all of last season and there is still a lot of football to play. All of these players have contributed in September, October and November - so they have credit with me. We will benefit from giving them a break physically and mentally.”