Noni Madueke time? Getting creative to solve England's attacking conundrums for manager Thomas Tuchel at the 2026 FIFA World Cup

While captain and star player Harry Kane is locked in to play up front, who the three are behind the Bayern Munich man has been the subject of some debate.

Not only is there a competition going on at the No. 10 spot between Morgan Rogers of Aston Villa and Real Madrid's Jude Bellingham, Tuchel doesn't seem to have fully settled on his combination of wide players.

His preparation for the Croatia game is unlikely to have been helped by the news that emerged on Tuesday with Newcastle United full-back Tino Livramento ruled out of the tournament with injury.

In order to help Tuchel out, we've run through some ways he might find some creative solutions to his problems in attack.

One of the problems Tuchel has is that his first-choice on the right, Bukayo Saka, is not fully fit after a gruelling season with Arsenal. And while he said he feels ready to go he did admit it is a gamble.

No England fan needs telling of how stern a test Croatia will be but, with possibly three teams going through to the knockouts, there is an argument to rest Saka as much as possible during the group stage and save him for the latter stages of the tournament.

While Arsenal team-mate Noni Madueke's selection raised some eyebrows among fans, Tuchel clearly feels he can be an adequate replacement for Saka. The group stage feels like the time to allow Madueke to show his credentials and therefore ensure that Saka is as fit as he can be. Saka is an elite player but he is not one who should be the difference between England making it out of the group or not.

Alternatively, if Tuchel is more concerned about Madueke playing Saka's minutes there is another way. At the moment, the battle on the left is between Barcelona's new signing Anthony Gordon and Marcus Rashford, who comes into the tournament after finding some form on loan at the Catalans last season.

But what if Tuchel played them both?

If Saka isn't fit to start and Madueke is not nailing down the place in his stead, why not start both with one, probably Gordon, moving over to the right? Not only does that open the door for some flexible position-switching during the game but it ensures that you could use Madueke off the bench if you really cannot risk Saka.

Both Gordon and Rashford prefer playing on the left but at World Cups you sometimes have to do things you aren't comfortable with.

The argument for going with one of these players over Madueke in Saka's absence would be one of form and also one of end product. The table below shows the stats for the four wingers for their club sides this season across all competitions.

You can see how Madueke struggles here compared to the other two. He is behind both Gordon and Rashford in the first three sections and, while he beats out Gordon in chances created, he can't beat out Rashford as well.

Right, let's look at the Rogers v Bellingham debate. We know Tuchel likes to get freaky at times with how he sets up his team, so why not just play them both?

This would bring the back three back into focus in our eyes (rather than a box 4-2-2-2 formation), something that Tuchel used to great effect during his time as Chelsea head coach when they won the UEFA Champions League.

The German has been reluctant to do this thus far with England and has preferred a more traditional 4-2-3-1. But don't forget that he chose to bring in central defender Trevoh Chalobah to replace the injured Livramento. Maybe that is a small clue to a possible tweak.

A back three would give more license to Reece James and Nico O'Reilly as wing-backs, and it could allow Tuchel to play Bellingham and Rogers together as the two players behind Kane. That would allow England to benefit from both players' intelligent movement to create openings, either by combining with Kane or one of the wing-backs.

It would also open the door to play Kane as one of the No. 10s and bring another player on as a striker later on in the game.

One of the interesting early trends from the World Cup has been the number of teams who are using a more traditional 4-4-2 with two flat banks of four and two up top, as opposed to the 4-2-3-1/4-3-3 hybrid that has tended to dominate modern football.

In this scenario, Tuchel could choose to use either Bellingham or Rogers right up next to Kane - which would accommodate the captain's desire to drop deep at times - or he could even choose to leave out both his No. 10s and instead play Rashford, Gordon, Ollie Watkins or Ivan Toney up alongside Kane.

By doing this, Tuchel will sacrifice a bit of control in the middle of the park but that was never going to be a strong aspect of England's game anyway. Instead he can lean into the strengths, which is catching opponents cold when England recover the ball. They can move it quickly to either the wide players or the two up front and create overloads before the opponent can recover.

This does perhaps feel like more of an option for when England are chasing a game late on but it is certainly an option if Tuchel wants to mix things up.

And it does ultimately go to show that while some fans might be frustrated with the squad that Tuchel picked there are different options available to the manager.

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