Tuchel defends England full-back picks as Reece James misses Panama match

Thomas Tuchel’s full-back plan took another hit when Reece James missed England’s final Group L match against Panama with a hamstring injury. James was assessed by England medics after Tuesday’s 0-0 draw with Ghana and did not travel with the squad to East Rutherford, New Jersey, leaving England with one less senior option on the right side.

Tuchel said James faced a race against time to be fit for England’s first knockout match if the team advanced. The absence added pressure to a position that had already been stretched earlier in the tournament, when Tino Livramento was withdrawn from the squad because of a calf injury. That sequence left Tuchel under scrutiny over whether England had built enough depth at full-back or simply assembled a squad that could absorb only one setback at a time.

England had already played Croatia and Ghana in Group L before meeting Panama, and the final group fixture now carried extra weight because of what was missing as much as who remained available. James had been central to Tuchel’s selection calculations, but the injury forced England to adjust again just as the margin for error narrowed.

The issue is not only James’s immediate absence in East Rutherford. It also sharpens the question of how Tuchel wants England to function across a tournament that can quickly expose thin spots in specialist positions. A hamstring problem for James and a calf injury for Livramento have left England relying on a reduced pool of full-backs while the group stage still had one match to play.

England’s route beyond Panama remained the broader concern, but the selection debate was already being shaped by the physical state of the squad. With James unavailable and Livramento gone earlier in the competition, Tuchel’s choices at right-back looked less like a settled plan and more like an evolving response to injuries as the tournament tightened.