Thomas Tuchel engaged in a slightly awkward phone call with his most recent England call-up and even asked if he was “still upset with me” following an initial snub.
The German coach, who officially started his England post on January 1, named his much-anticipated 26-man squad on Friday morning ahead of next week’s World Cup qualifiers against Albania and Latvia.
Kyle Walker, Jarell Quansah and Ajax midfielder Jordan Henderson were some of the more surprising inclusions, while a number of in-form players missed out, including Callum Hudson-Odoi, Conor Gallagher and Morgan Gibbs-White.
Gibbs-White has been one of the Premier League‘s standout performers for Nuno Espirito Santo’s overachieving Nottingham Forest side this season, notching five goals and seven assists in the league.
He initially missed out on Tuchel’s squad but following an injury to Cole Palmer, the 25-year-old attacking midfielder earned a last-minute call-up.
Gibbs-White has since opened up on his all-important phone call with Tuchel, who even asked if the Nottingham Forest captain was “still upset ” after initially missing out.
“It was about 4 or 5 o’clock on Sunday,” Gibbs-White told BBC Radio 5 Live: “The manager, Thomas, sent me a message to say ‘are you free to talk?’ And I replied within seconds ‘yeah’.
“He phoned me up and said ‘are you still upset with me, or do you want to come and join us and fancy training tomorrow?’. I said ‘I’d obviously love to come and join and train with the boys’, so, yes, I found out Sunday late afternoon-ish and I was just smiling from ear to ear.”
When asked if he was disappointed at not being in the squad first time around, Gibbs-White was refreshingly honest.
“Obviously I was upset. Yes, a little bit disappointed,” he said. “But at the same time, you also have to look at the quality of players that England have at the minute, so obviously I took that into consideration.
“But when he told me, I respected his decision. The standard of players is top level.”
The midfielder added: “I said to him ‘I feel like I’ve done enough to get the call up, considering the form level that I am in, but obviously you’re the manager, you make the decisions, and I respect that totally’.”
Tuchel has been “incredible” in his early days as England manager, according to Gibbs-White. Image credit: Getty
As mentioned above, Nottingham Forest have overachieved this season and currently sit third in the Premier League table with 16 wins from a possible 29.
“It’s been a remarkable year,” said Gibbs-White. “Just to see where we’ve come from, from this time last year is incredible. I think the Forest fans deserve that the most.
“Obviously, getting back into the Premier League was one thing, and then scrambling away from relegation for the two years that we were in the Prem obviously wasn’t nice. It wasn’t good, it wasn’t enjoyable.
“But now, obviously, we’ve given the fans something to sing about, to cheer about.”
