Alan Shearer backs Bellingham ahead of Rogers for No 10
alan shearer is pointing toward the same England shape Thomas Tuchel appears ready to trust against Croatia next week. Tuchel said he has "14 or 15" players in mind for the World Cup opener, and the team that beat Costa Rica 3-0 in Orlando on Wednesday is expected to be close to the one he picks.
Jude Bellingham is set to win the race ahead of Morgan Rogers for the No 10 role. If that holds, Rogers is likely to start on the bench, leaving England with one fewer attacking change from the side that finished the Costa Rica game.
Bellingham over Rogers
Bellingham has represented England four times this season, and that keeps him in the frame for the most advanced midfield slot. Tuchel’s selection call now looks like a direct choice between his established big-game option and Rogers, who would slip into a reserve role if the Wednesday lineup is reused in anything close to full.
The fact that Tuchel has narrowed the opener group to "14 or 15" players suggests the midfield picture is already tightening. He is not building from a wide pool anymore; he is trimming toward the group that will face Croatia.
Stones and Konsa edge Guehi
John Stones and Ezri Konsa are expected to be England’s first-choice central defensive pairing at the World Cup. That would push Marc Guehi out of the starting line, even though he was widely viewed as England’s first-choice centre-back and became central to the plans at Euro 2024.
The tilt toward Stones and Konsa fits an emerging feeling around Tuchel’s back line: more physicality. Pep Guardiola had picked Guehi ahead of Stones during the final months of the season after Guehi’s move from Crystal Palace to Manchester City, but Stones’s campaign was heavily disrupted by injury and Tuchel seems to be weighing a different balance for the opener.
Tuchel’s opener shape
England’s 3-0 win over Costa Rica gave Tuchel a template to work from, and Wednesday’s team is now the reference point for the Croatia game. The opener is not being treated as a fresh experiment; it is moving toward a settled XI with Bellingham in the No 10 slot and the Stones-Konsa partnership in central defense.
For England, that leaves one main selection battle at the top of the midfield and one at the heart of the defense. The squad is not finalised, but the direction of travel is clear enough: Rogers and Guehi are the names most likely to lose out if Tuchel stays close to the Costa Rica side.
