The Arsenal, Spurs & Man City stars battling to be England's left-back - and which of them should winplaceholder image
The Arsenal, Spurs & Man City stars battling to be England's left-back - and which of them should win | Getty Images
Thomas Tuchel seems to have five options for his left-back at the 2026 World Cup - but who should be England’s number one?
Much of the build-up to England’s World Cup qualifier against Serbia on Thursday evening has focussed on who will play the number 10 role – the recalled Phil Foden, the fit-again Jude Bellingham or Morgan Rogers, impressive for his country but struggling at club level. It’s an intriguing positional battle, especially when the injured Cole Palmer is added to the debate. But there may be another position on the pitch which presents Thomas Tuchel with an even tougher decision.
The modern history of England’s left-back position can be summed up as long periods of doubt and difficulty punctuated all too briefly by Ashley Cole. So many square pegs have been hammered into round holes, and all too few players tried out in that position have been able to maintain their form for the Three Lions or (in the case of Luke Shaw) their fitness. Now Tuchel must piece together the same puzzle so many former England managers have been stumped by.
England are not short of options – but they are short of experience. Against Serbia and Albania, Djed Spence and Nico O’Reilly will be given their opportunity to audition for a place on the plane to the United States. But with a number of other contenders snapping at their heels, who should be on the flight next summer?
What Thomas Tuchel is looking for in an England left-back
If Tuchel’s early experiments with the position hadn’t made the point clear already, his discussion of the ways Foden might be used for England made it plain – England are not interested in an overlapping left-back who will bomb on down the flank and hit the byline.
Tuchel bluntly stated that Foden could not play in the same system as Bellingham and Harry Kane, presumably implying that as a naturally right-footed player who would look to come inside around the penalty area, he did not fit the structure. Anthony Gordon and Marcus Rashford are comfortable playing as a more traditional winger that stays wide and lets others support them on the inside. Foden is not, at least in Tuchel’s eyes, and it was made clear enough that the Manchester City man would not be playing on the left wing.
What Tuchel seems to want in a left-back is a player who doesn’t look to come around the more attacking players, but one who joins the midfield when England are in possession. It’s a more conservative conception of the modern left-back, one which doesn’t prioritise pace, dribbling and crossing but positioning and economic, intelligent passing.
In short, it’s bad news for players like Lewis Hall, who seemed to be in pole position to take the job for the long term before Tuchel’s appointment and a slew of injuries put the brakes on his progress. Hall is fit again and may be given a chance to stake a claim in the one remaining international break between now and the announcement of the World Cup squad, but suddenly looks like an awkward fit as a player who wants to stay close to the touchline and support the attack from wider areas.
One of the upsides of Tuchel’s ideology is that it doesn’t much matter whether the player operating at left-back is left-footed or not, which opens the auditions up to the floor. Spence would not have been a fit for the role under Gareth Southgate, and nor would Valentino Livramento, who misses these matches through injury.
This week, Tuchel will be taking a look at Spence and Nico O’Reilly, called up for the second squad in a row but still to make his debut. He has jettisoned Arsenal’s Myles Lewis-Skelly, for now, with the teenager unable to wrestle his starting spot at the Emirates back from Riccardo Calafiori, but he too is very much an option for next summer.
Including Hall (but excluding Rico Lewis, who has not been called up under Tuchel), England have at least five viable options for the position who have just 14 caps between them. None of the players who seem to be on the shortlist have had long enough careers to firmly establish their credentials – only to suggest their talent. So who should, on paper, win the battle to be England’s left-back at the next World Cup?
Arsenal’s Myles Lewis-Skelly may still be England’s best option - but it isn’t clear-cut
Go back to the end of last season, and most pundits would have bet the house on Lewis-Skelly being Tuchel’s first choice. Composed on the ball and a remarkably good decision-maker for such a young player, the 19-year-old was making an impact up and down the pitch, but with Calafiori on fine form he has simply not been getting enough first-team football of late. In leaving Lewis-Skelly out, Tuchel has made a point about regular football being a requisite for call-ups.
Still, if Lewis-Skelly is playing more frequently by the time Tuchel names his World Cup squad, he has the credentials for the job. Between himself, Spence, Livramento, O’Reilly and Hall, he is comfortably the most accurate passer and is also among the best ball carriers – certainly, he’s a long way ahead of O’Reilly and Livramento in that regard. If Tuchel values the ability to take a man on and progress the ball downfield on the dribble, then neither of those two present a strong case to be first choice.
Lewis-Skelly doesn’t necessarily have the best passing range of the five – that may be Livramento although all of them play a high volume of passes into dangerous areas other than O’Reilly – but it’s likely, given the nature of the position as Tuchel appears to envisage it, that economical passing is more important to him. If the key is to find a left-back who combines precision with the ability to intelligently tee moves up in midfield, then Lewis-Skelly is probably at the top of the list.
He may also be the best one-on-one defender out of the five, a crucial attribute in a position where such a large portion of the defensive responsibilities involve shutting down wingers running right at you. Lewis-Skelly is a positional defender first and foremost and makes an unusually low number of tackles as a result, but his judgement is exceptional and his success rate remarkable – he has only failed with one attempted tackle in the Premier League since making his debut.
Livramento is, again, the worst of the five when it comes to one-on-one defending, succeeding with less than half of his challenges on opposing ball carriers, while Spence is probably the runner-up to Lewis-Skelly in that regard, at least based on the raw data.
The long and short of it is that Lewis-Skelly probably is the best English left-back in the game right now, at least for the system that Tuchel wants to use. Hall is excellent but struggling for fitness and most of the areas in which he stands out statistically are based on playing as an overlapping wing-back. Livramento is solid, but a natural right-back and statistically some way behind his rivals. O’Reilly is a fine all-rounder with few weaknesses who suits Tuchel’s system, but has perhaps the least experience and can struggle one-on-one.
If Lewis-Skelly isn’t playing enough for Tuchel to call him up, then Spence probably makes the most sense on current form. He’s an excellent one-on-one defender, comfortable on the ball and a smart, sensible passer. He fits the bill more cleanly than most of his apparent rivals for the role, and has the most experience in the professional game, if not the most caps.
He will, most likely, start against Serbia on Thursday and get the chance to seal his place in the squad – at least, so long as he can keep Destiny Udogie out of the Tottenham Hotspur team. If Lewis-Skelly can be discarded by England after falling down the pecking order with Arsenal, then the same could happen to Spence.
It’s a strange world in which perhaps England’s two best left-backs are battling fiercely to get into their starting line-ups at club level, but that’s more of an indicator of the sheer strength of the squads at the top end of the Premier League than it is an indictment of the quality of English left-backs. For once, an England managers has plenty to choose from at his country’s most persistently problematic position – all that remains is for Tuchel to make the right choice.
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