Elliot Anderson says he cannot remember where he watched the last major tournament that England played in, the 2024 European Championships in Germany.
‘I definitely would have watched it,’ he told me sheepishly earlier this year.
‘I will have been with my mates somewhere.’
Life has moved quickly for the Nottingham Forest midfielder recently. The journey from his friend’s sofa to the heart of the England midfield here in America was one nobody really saw coming.
But now that he is here – now that he is one of a group of players England manager Thomas Tuchel knows he can’t be without – it feels as though the challenges may only really be beginning.
Anderson is something of a poster boy for the Premier League’s financial rules and regulations. The face of PSR, you may say.
Elliot Anderson has rapidly become indispensable for Thomas Tuchel’s England side
His move from Newcastle to Forest two summers ago only happened because the north-east club had to sell a home-grown talent to balance their books.
His next transfer is likely to be easier to understand. Both Manchester clubs are willing to pay big money this summer to make Anderson the player around whom a midfield can be built. Currently, City are favourites and the chances are he will wear sky blue next season.
Forest will not lie down and roll over. It’s not the way owner Evangelos Marinakis does business and the Greek is already known to be irritated by the assumption that his best player can be picked off at will by one of the two northern powerhouses.
So this is one that could drag on into the start of this World Cup and that will bring its own pressures to bear on a player of whom on awful lot is already being asked here in America.
Tuchel has already made his own stance on the matter clear. Unlike some of his predecessors, he will not ask his players to leave their club business at the door of this tournament. He knows that is not realistic.
‘If anyone has the chance to complete a transfer, we will not stand in the way, but it has to align with our schedule and our goals, which is to be focused and prepare for matches,’ said Tuchel.
‘The last day before the match and the second last day, not.
‘Until now, no player approached me. The doctor is ready to take any medical if needed! We are always happy to help to have clarity around the player.’
It’s a grown-up approach from a manager who likes to treat his players as adults and is acutely aware of how the world works. As a former coach at clubs like Chelsea, PSG and Bayern, the German knows that the transfer market doesn’t press pause just because there is a World Cup on.
Anderson (left), pictured with Harry Kane, Reece James, Djed Spence and Morgan Rogers, is at the centre of a transfer battle between the Manchester clubs
Anderson, 23, is aware of the situation, of course. He knows that Forest have already knocked one £80m bid back from City. His representatives, meanwhile, are currently at that stage where they can sit back and let the clubs get on with it.
‘Elliot won’t be fazed by it,’ explains one source who knows him well.
‘He isn’t that kind of lad.
‘The move from Newcastle to Forest was huge. He envisaged staying at Newcastle for ever.
‘But when the move came out of the blue, he just walked out of the door and got on with it.’
Anderson is a reserved character. He is not hugely excitable. He still remains unconvinced that he is the most famous member of his family. His brother Wil was a contestant on Love Island.
‘When he went into the show I was playing for Newcastle and when he came out I was at Forest,’ Anderson told me.
‘I think he took longer to get his head round than I did.’
It’s quite possible that a similar story may play out this summer. City, in particular, do not seem intent on waiting for Anderson’s value to go up on the back of a good World Cup. They want to do a deal quickly.
Having lost his mother in mid-April, this has already been a difficult spell for Anderson and the responsibility he will carry here for Tuchel’s England is significant.
But this is a young man who knows his own mind. For example, he is not ashamed to say that one of his key footballing mentors is the disgraced Joey Barton. Anderson played for Barton on loan at Bristol Rovers and flourished. Told he would have to wait to get in his team, a teenage Anderson vowed to prove him wrong. It took him a week.
In the build up to England’s last two tournaments – the 2024 Euros and winter World Cup of 2022 – Tuchel’s predecessor Gareth Southgate fretted about the lack of a natural partner for Rice in his midfield.
Anderson is a reserved but fiercely determined character ready to take to the big stage
‘It’s always a question of Declan and who?’ was Southgate’s most memorable quote on the matter.
The last Euros saw Trent Alexander-Arnold and Conor Gallagher – remember them? – thrust to the fore. Eventually Southgate settled on United’s precocious youngster Kobbie Mainoo.
Mainoo is in Tuchel’s squad here and if United got their way he would partner Anderson in a new Old Trafford midfield next season.
It will be Rice and Anderson in America for England, though. Tuchel and his assistant Anthony Barry have privately described the latter as the ‘gift that fell from the sky’, such was Anderson’s emergence from almost nowhere on their watch.
Anderson – who used to wear a Lionel Messi shirt in the back garden – may not remember much about the summer of 2024. The summer of 2026 will leave a greater impression, with club and with country.
