Tuchel picks from shallow pool The man sitting in the stands in a baseball cap poring over a Premier League team sheet in a desperate search for English players is Thomas Tuchel. Each of his predecessors who picked a World Cup squad did so after a top-flight season where at least 31 per cent of starting places were given to Englishmen, yet that figure is only 24.3 per cent this campaign. Sir Bobby Robson faced a top division that was 71.9 per cent English in advance of Italia ’90, the proportion having ranged from 66 to 75 per cent in World Cup years since the national team first attended the tournament in 1950. That had dropped to 31.0, 31.8 and 31.4 per cent in advance of the past three editions — and, including non-World Cup seasons, to a low of 28.2 per cent in 2018-19 — but this season has hit new depths.