Thomas Tuchel Says John Stones Must Stay Fit To Keep Alive World Cup Hopes

Thomas Tuchel has thrown John Stones’s hopes of going to nan World Cup into uncertainty aft nan defender’s latest wounded setback forced him to propulsion retired of England’s qualifiers against Andorra and Serbia.

Stones is 1 of nan squad’s starring figures but he has been held backmost by a bid of fittingness issues during nan past 18 months and has not featured astatine world level since past October. It is frustrating authorities of affairs for Tuchel, who hoped to commencement nan Manchester City centre-back erstwhile England big Andorra astatine Villa Park connected Saturday. Stones has been a regular astatine caller tournaments but he is yet to play for Tuchel, who made it clear that nan 31-year-old will only stay an important portion of his plans up of adjacent summer’s World Cup if he stays fit.

“I’m a large instrumentality of John, his characteristic and his quality” England’s caput coach told BBC 5Live. “He could beryllium an important figure, of course, but he needs to beryllium available. He wants to beryllium disposable and he’s a apical professional, truthful he is nan astir upset successful each this because he does really everything to beryllium fresh and struggles past pinch these insignificant issues from clip to clip that costs him crippled time.

“I dream he keeps his tone up because he will enactment important for us. I saw successful these 3 days what he what he intends to nan group arsenic a characteristic and arsenic a societal glue wrong nan group. What he brings to nan transportation is outstanding value arsenic a cardinal defender and perchance arsenic a pivotal No 6, but we person to accommodate to it. He’s now not disposable anymore. We will find solutions for it.”

Tuchel planned to springiness Stones, who has played successful City’s first 3 convention games this season, a salient domiciled during this camp. Along pinch starting him astatine nan backmost against Andorra, England’s caput coach revealed that he was considering utilizing him successful protect midfield for nan travel to Serbia connected Tuesday. “I deliberation he would person possibly started arsenic a cardinal defender successful this match, but he was successful contention for playing No 6 for america arsenic well,” Tuchel told Talksport. “It was successful our thoughts to possibly usage him arsenic a six against Serbia. But listen, this is really it is. He’s very upset. He’s very upset because he does everything connected a regular ground to beryllium fit.

“Now he has again insignificant issues. It will costs him 2 caps for nan nationalist team. It will possibly costs him immoderate minutes for Manchester City. He was a large portion of campy truthful far. But, yeah, it is what it is. We person to adapt. We person to find solutions. We will person a beardown squad tomorrow, and we will travel up pinch solutions without John.”

England’s different options astatine centre-back are Ezri Konsa, Dan Burn, Marc Guéhi and Jarell Quansah.