Thomas Tuchel laughed at mention of Cole Palmer and Trent Alexander-Arnold. He was not disrespecting the players, but the notion that they were now the remedy to England’s low-block mental block.
‘It’s a reflex, things don’t go well and the guys on the bench are suddenly the winners or the guys at home are the winners,’ said the England head coach. ‘That’s not it. I cannot engage with this after a draw. Spain, Brazil and Portugal have also drawn matches.’
England’s draw was against Ghana on Tuesday, a stalemate that invited an inevitable backlash. Jamie Carragher wanted Palmer. Alan Shearer wanted Alexander-Arnold. They were not lone voices.
Tuchel, however, has never subscribed to the wisdom of crowds. Elite coaches rarely do. One result – one that keeps England top of the group – does not have him pining for those he left behind. He does not deny he needs to find solutions, especially with Panama likely to imitate the stubbornness of Ghana here in New Jersey, but he will do that with the players he trusts, even if he knows some have to do better.
Take England’s left, where everything feels far from right. Anthony Gordon’s lack of threat means his place is under threat. In two matches, the Barcelona winger has huffed and puffed and blown nothing down. Marcus Rashford, meanwhile, is wondering what he must do to win a start, and that was put to Tuchel ahead of the final group match. The German, as ever, was brutally honest.
‘Marcus is in a good place, but when he started (in the first warm-up match against New Zealand) he was not as decisive as Anthony, that’s just it,’ said Tuchel. ‘We then had a very good match against Costa Rica with Anthony and the unit on the left side. They were so good, I thought, ‘OK, the left side is solved, this unit, they find their link’.’
Marcus Rashford is pushing for a start over Anthony Gordon for England at the World Cup
That unit was Gordon with Nico O’Reilly at left back and Declan Rice and Jude Bellingham supporting from central areas. So far, it has failed to replicate its pre-tournament fluency.
‘The unit on the left has not provided the same quality as they did against Costa Rica,’ Tuchel went on. ‘It turns out we played the first match (versus Croatia) and they’re not clicking. I’m not even sure why, but it was not the same amount of connection, not the same amount of penetration, not the same amount of verticality, and this was the same in the second match.’
That does not mean Tuchel regrets his squad choices, and it does not mean Gordon will be taken out, either. In fact, even though Rashford’s skill as opposed to Gordon’s will is better suited to breaking down Panama, Tuchel has suggested that Rashford remains one of his ‘finishers’. The player, we hear, does not see it that way. He wants to play.
‘Marcus is just also very good from the bench, and it’s sometimes nice to hold someone back,’ said Tuchel. ‘He struggled to have the same influence for us from the start, and yet from the bench he was always pushing. He’s in a good place. He’s pushing. He’s a candidate to start, but the left side in general, no matter who plays, needs to click a bit more and provide a bit more threat.’
It is true that by starting Rashford the cost is that you cannot bring him on. Of all those in reserve in the first two games – if we assume Bukayo Saka will be a starter when ready – it is Rashford who tired opponents will fear most. He can make light work of heavy legs, evidenced by the calm and clinical taking of his goal against Croatia after coming from the bench.
Tuchel likes to have that option to call on and it speaks to his faith in the processes he has employed. All has not been knocked off course by one wayward afternoon in Boston. Rather, he has arrived in New York in an Empire state of mind.
‘Nothing I have seen (at the World Cup) scares me – I’m not scared in general,’ said Tuchel. ‘We feel confident enough to be ready to compete on any level. I see, of course, good teams. I see high-quality individual players who decide matches. But I still see our group as one of the most difficult.
‘Honestly, we had a message from a very famous colleague after Ghana changed their coach (to Carlos Queiroz). He texted: ‘Your most difficult game is now the second game, I tell you that’. So I have a bit of respect for who we’re playing. Then, we need to trust our players and respect them. It helps no one if we question them now.’
There will be questions, though, if Tuchel does not pick a team and devise a tactic to get through Panama. It was interesting listening to former players in punditry roles on Tuesday – some said England just needed to be patient, others wanted more intensity and everything to be quicker. It can’t be both. But this outlines the difficulty facing Tuchel, not that it is something new. He accepts that obdurate opponents have been problematic for England over the years.
‘It is normal that it is difficult for us to overcome these type of blocks,’ he said. ‘It was difficult in the Andorra games (1-0 & 2-0). But it is also difficult for club teams who have more training time. I see many matches that look like this.
‘I haven’t found the recipe where, ‘They do this, then we do this – and then we are fine’. We will try to find a very active and aggressive approach, but we cannot just be stupid and naive. We cannot just be open and put seven players on the last line and defend with three. That’s not serious.
Thomas Tuchel will not change tack. At the World Cup in the US, it is his way or the freeway
‘Instead, it needs this one moment of quality and a bit more precision, timing and awareness with the crossing. Are we arriving aggressively enough with the cross? How can we shoot more from outside the box, have a deflection and force this goal?’
England should be better than needing a deflection to beat Panama, of course. Carragher will tell you that Palmer’s goal against Spain in the final of Euro 2024 was a clean steer into the bottom corner from 25 yards. Palmer was Gareth Southgate’s Plan B – and he could have been Tuchel’s. But this England boss wants to be less reliant on contingency. He has a plan and he’s sticking to it.
‘The highs should not get too high and the lows should not get too low – but I don’t think Ghana was a low,’ said Tuchel. ‘It is time to believe and time to keep on going.’
Here in the United States this summer, it is his way or the freeway.
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