Tuchel to contact omitted England players after World Cup qualification

England manager Thomas Tuchel said he will speak with Jude Bellingham and other players omitted from his October squads ahead of the November international break, after leaving the Real Madrid midfielder out of the teams that beat Wales and Latvia. England secured qualification for next summer's World Cup with a 5-0 win in Riga on Tuesday, completing a flawless qualifying run of six wins and six clean sheets under Tuchel.

Tuchel confirmed he will reach out to players who were not in camp, saying he will text and speak to "a lot of players" and that omissions were not intended as punishment. He noted several of those who missed out had already received phone calls before the October squad was announced, and reiterated he wants returning players to buy into the standards and collective approach he is building. "No one has done anything wrong, it is not a punishment," Tuchel said. "I feel when I text them and I speak to them everyone is eager to come back."

The manager has established a leadership group in camp that he described as the "drivers of the standards and the drivers of the mentality." Declan Rice wore the armband in Harry Kane's absence for the Wales match, and Tuchel...