How to load nested properties through EF Core using Expression?

Question

.NET

Such a situation: there is a ListAsync method in the repository method, approximately implemented like this:

public virtual async Task<IEnumerable<TEntity>> ListAsync(
            params Expression<Func<TEntity, object>>[] includeProperties)
        {
            IQueryable<TEntity> query = this.QueryableEntities;
 
            if (includeProperties != null)
            {
                foreach (Expression<Func<TEntity, object>> includeProperty in includeProperties)
                {
                    query = query.Include(includeProperty);
                }
            }
 
            return await query.AsNoTracking().ToListAsync();
        }

The includeProperties parameter tells which nested properties to load as well. I have three more entities:

class Image
{
        public Guid ImageGuid { get; set; }
 
        public List<ImageTag> ImageTags { get; set; }
}
 
class ImageTag
{
        public Guid ImageGuid { get; set; }
 
        public Image Image { get; set; }
 
        public int TagId { get; set; }
 
        public Tag Tag { get; set; }
}
 
class Tag
{
        public int TagId { get; set; }
 
        public string Name { get; set; }
 
        public List<ImageTag> ImageTags { get; set; }
}

Now I want to load a list of all Image. Through the ImageRepository I write the following code:

imageRepository.ListAsync(
   (img) => img.ImageTags.Select(t => t.Tags));

But this implementation throws an exception: Lambda expression used inside Include is not valid. Can you please tell me how to correctly implement the loading of nested properties without ThenInclude in EF Core?