Wes Brown sits at the edge of England’s latest selection call, but the sharper news is Harry Maguire being left out twice. After Tino Livramentio withdrew injured, England chose Trevoh Chalobah instead and kept Maguire out of Thomas Tuchel’s 26-man group.
Maguire, 33, said Tuchel tells players by FaceTime. “He FaceTimes everyone. It’s quite an awkward call.” For a defender with 66 caps, the second omission lands harder because it came after a squad change opened a place and England still went another way.
Chalobah gets the call
The move was straightforward: England did not add Maguire after Livramentio withdrew, and Chalobah came in as the replacement. That leaves Tuchel’s back line shaped by the original 26-man squad and the late injury change, rather than by a recall for one of the squad’s most experienced centre-halves.
England then started their World Cup campaign against Croatia and won 4-2 in Texas, with John Stones and Ezri Konsa in the side. The scoreline gives the campaign a clean result, but it does not erase the selection call that preceded it.
Danny Mills on England
Danny Mills said the defensive situation “was always going to be the worry” going into the tournament. He also said, “I was a little bit surprised by Stones and Konsa, that selection.”
Mills added, “I’ve said from day one, if Stones is fit, he plays, because I think he’s exceptional.” He said he would have played him alongside Marc Guehi, called Reece James “a fantastic full-back and a great footballer,” and said Nico O'Reilly has done well for Manchester City but can be better going forward than defending at times.
England’s defensive balance
There is a second layer to the Maguire omission: Mills still sees Harry Maguire as a useful option because “you can bring on, you can play him in a back three if you need to. You can use him as a weapon up front.” He finished with a blunt read on the squad: “So, yes, one or two defensive concerns still.”
That is the problem Tuchel now carries into the 2026 World Cup. Maguire has 66 caps and club form toward the end of the 2025-26 Premier League season had kept him in the discussion, yet England still backed other names when the injury change came.
For England, the immediate takeaway is simple: Chalobah has the seat that opened up, Maguire does not, and the back line remains the part of the squad that still draws the most doubt after a 4-2 win over Croatia.
