Don't be angry: England boss Thomas Tuchel was right to name Ivan Toney in World Cup squad

So, which of Thomas Tuchel’s decisions inspired the most rage in you? Was it Jordan Henderson’s inevitable inclusion that made you foam especially ferociously at the mouth, or perhaps the call to leave Harry Maguire at home? Did Djed Spence being in over Lewis Hall send you into a tailspin?

All choices which seem to have induced widespread apoplexy among Three Lions fans, but they aren’t the only reasons that people are suddenly keen for Tuchel to be given a leg and a wing into the North Sea. Ivan Toney is another player whose place in England’s World Cup squad has been a source of fervid anger.

Two years on from his decision to move to Saudi Arabia and one year on from his only England appearance under Tuchel – a two-minute cameo in last June’s wearied defeat to Senegal at the City Ground – Toney is back in the squad for the World Cup. It’s a surprising inclusion, certainly, but is it one worth getting in a lather over?

Ivan Toney’s selection was a surprise – but not an unpleasant one

Yes, seeing Toney’s name on the 26-man squad list was something of a shock. Tuchel hadn’t appeared to be all that keen on the 30-year-old, and has admitted that he was unimpressed by the striker’s work rate and commitment in training when he called him up last summer. But unexpected decisions aren’t necessarily bad ones.

Tuchel swiftly made it clear that his disappointment with Toney was not a reflection on his personality, but admitted that he had deemed it necessary to “clear the air” with the former Brentford man before selecting him.

“After having another conversation with him and having very good feedback from his club coach and good feedback from the Euros in Germany, we decided to reopen the door,” Tuchel said on Friday. “It was not a matter of his character… Off the pitch, he is glue. He is someone who connects with everyone very, very well.”

That latter comment provides the first hints as to why Tuchel decided to take Toney with him over the Atlantic. The England head coach has made it clear that he values characters who will help with team cohesion, and he has deemed that Toney, like Henderson, is a player whose presence will help on that level. But this is a selection that goes beyond character, good or bad.

Amidst all the raised eyebrows, a simple fact seems to have been forgotten: That Ivan Toney is rather good at football. This is a player who scored 32 Premier League goals in 66 games before he was suspended for eight months due to gambling offences, and who has been banging them in with joyful abandon in Saudi Arabia since – he has 72 goals for Al-Ahli in 93 appearances.

Sure, the Saudi Pro League is a step down, but he still outscored Cristiano Ronaldo this season. Toney has been going at a goal a game in the league, too, comfortably outscoring his xG total, and has also provided seven assists. The combination of predatory instincts and sharp link-up play which made him easily one of the best strikers in England for two seasons in a row appears largely undiminished. He is still rather good at football.

Ivan Toney offers England something different

As Tuchel’s squad selection as a whole makes clear, of course, he isn’t solely picking players on talent and raw production. He is building a squad, with players brought along who can give the Three Lions a different dimension when it’s required.

Harry Kane is, of course, the clear-cut starter up front, but in choosing Toney and Ollie Watkins to come along for the ride Tuchel hasn’t simply picked a pair of back-ups who can be thrown into the blender should Kane require a rest or (let us not think about it any more than we have to) get injured. He’s picked players who can give England something a little different.

Watkins offers an extra burst of pace and the ability to attack high defensive lines by peeling off the shoulder of the last man, as he did so effectively against the Netherlands in Euro 2024. Toney, meanwhile, offers another kind of profile – not least in the fact that his link-up play would make him the natural choice to play alongside Kane should Tuchel want to move to a front two at any point.

“He can start for us but I don’t see him as a starter. His role is to finish matches for us,” Tuchel helpfully elaborated during his press conference. “He is, in this case, part of a special operations team. He knows that and that’s his role.”

Those ‘special operations’ will include being prepared to take penalties, with Toney among the best in the game from 12 yards, but he also gives England access to different means by which to finish matches off, to bring other forwards into play and to get at defenders.

Besides… Who exactly was Tuchel supposed to take instead? Danny Welbeck, who seldom plays a full 90 minutes and whose profile overlaps extensively with Kane’s? Dominic Solanke, battered and bruised and barely able to string two matches together?

There’s a case to be made for Dominic Calvert-Lewin, whose physicality and aerial prowess make him a more natural target for crosses than Toney or Watkins – but he’s also an inconsistent finisher and, in any case, England simply don’t launch all that many crosses into the box under Tuchel. Without overlapping wing-backs and with possession the focus over directness, Calvert-Lewin’s skillset simply doesn’t mesh with England’s system.

Toney fits a possession-based system much more cleanly, and has been scoring both more frequently and more consistently than Calvert-Lewin for years. For the right manager and the right tactical set-up, the Leeds forward would have been the right player to pick. It’s doubtful whether he was the right man for this particular England side, however.

One can use a similar flow of logic to explain most of Tuchel’s selections, although he plainly has his own personal preferences as well. Henderson, for instance, is superb when you need someone to come on for 10 minutes to keep possession. England didn’t need another box-to-box dynamo like Adam Wharton – Henderson is able to play a different role, and his inclusion isn’t just a result of his apparently exceptional intangible qualities.

In any case, it seems improbable that the back-ups chosen to fill out the squad will be the reason that England don’t win the World Cup. If England make a meal of it, it won’t be because Tuchel picked Toney or Henderson, and it won’t be because Lewis Hall was left at home. It will be because the combination of strategy and starting line-up simply weren’t sufficient – or, of course, because of simple bad luck. Tournament football is a capricious beast, and Tuchel might get every single decision right and still come home after the group stage.

After all of the ire and the protests and the furious social media posts that have followed the announcement of the England’s squad, it seems as though a lot of fans have forgotten that Tuchel is a fine coach who probably has a pretty clear idea of what he’s doing. They may also have forgotten that Toney is a very good striker indeed, and having him at the World Cup may well make his side stronger.