Thomas Tuchel doesn’t tend to do understatement but even so the frankness of his analysis of those who he needs to contribute big attacking moments at this summer’s World Cup was quite startling.
Delivered amid the crisis-gripped environs of Tottenham Hotspur’s training ground, the England head coach’s words pointed to problems of his own as he tries to deliver an England team locked and loaded to the start line in America in mid-June.
‘I really love the quality of our players, especially the offensive players, but the pure numbers of our players on the wing and wherever – except for Harry Kane – are not the outstanding numbers we would normally expect,’ said Tuchel.
‘So what is the reason for that? Is it because in the [Premier] League the defenders are so strong that it’s difficult to score and assist? I don’t know.
‘I would love them to have more numbers, meaning Bukayo [Saka], Noni [Madueke], Ebs [Eze], Anthony Gordon, even Cole Palmer, even Morgan Rogers. Not Jude [Bellingham] but Phil Foden.
‘Who is producing, like Harry, these outstanding numbers? Who’s deciding [games]?
Thomas Tuchel has a burgeoning attacking dilemma on his hands as England counts down to the World Cup
Few of his attacking talents have accrued the goal haul of his talented captain Harry Kane
‘It’s just a fact and tells me that we have to do it as a team.’
Tuchel always delivers such truths without malice or even particular intent. On this one, he also has the numbers on his side.
Kane – his captain – continues to plunder goals with metronomic efficiency for Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga. In terms of the supporting cast, nobody bar Leeds United’s Dominic Calvert-Lewin has reached double figures.
For English football, it feels like a perfect storm that has arrived at the wrong time. We don’t doubt the talent of the crop of forward players available to Tuchel but it has been apparent for a while that this has not been a progressive year for players such as Palmer, Foden and Saka in particular.
On Monday, the conversation centred around familiar ills that may or may not go some way to explaining it. The England team that will face Japan – ranked at 18 by FIFA – at Wembley on Tuesday will be compromised by injuries, some more serious than others. Fatigue exacerbated by the domestic schedule is also not expected to help between now and the season’s end.
At a gathering in central London last June, Tuchel warned of this – he was particularly concerned about Chelsea’s participation in the Club World Cup – and at least in part some of his gut feels have proved portentous.
Indeed, this has been the theme for a while. A World Cup of ‘big moments rather than big performances’ is how his assistant Anthony Barry put it last winter when asked to look ahead to a hot American summer. Tuchel himself merely says he has his fingers crossed.
‘It is a threat,’ he said, when asked about fatigue
‘Not the biggest one but it is a threat. It’s just a fact.’
Both Phil Foden and Cole Palmer will have hoped for more impressive seasons ahead of a looming international tournament
Kane is expected to start against Japan on Tuesday. In Bellingham’s absence, we can expect to see Rogers in the ten position while it will be a surprise if Anthony Gordon of Newcastle does not start on the left. Opportunity, then, for some of Tuchel’s senior players to make more of an impression that the B team did in their drab 1-1 draw with Uruguay last Friday.
Tuchel did his best to accentuate the positives of that experience when he reconvened with the media on Monday. He appreciated it was not an attractive spectacle but pushed back against the suggestion that the fact England almost lost a game they were in control of – only Harry Maguire’s added time block saved them – was not a great sign.
Certainly England’s post-match gripes about refereeing decision on Friday rang hollow. For example, the late penalty that gave Uruguay parity would be given every day of the week at the World Cup. Indeed England were awarded an identical one when trailing the Euro 2024 semi-final to the Netherlands in Dortmund.
Instead of moaning about it, should England not just learn to be better?
‘We would have changed completely if it was a knockout game,’ was Tuchel’s take on that.
‘We would have behaved differently. We would have made later substitutions, maybe switched to a 5-4-1 if this is a quarter-final and you’re 1-0 ahead.
‘We would have different tools if it really matters. Something can happen in any match from out of nothing. They hit another long ball and we were a bit disorganised.
‘There are reasons for it. I am not scared. I have full trust in my team.
‘I liked the way they behaved and they played as a team with all these changes and all these injuries. I’m OK with it.’
If that felt like a nod to an ‘I will be alright on the night’ philosophy from Tuchel then it’s unlike him. Equally, this has proved to be a slightly more complicated international period than he anticipated and hoped.
With eleven Arsenal players now recalled from international duty with injuries, it’s natural to be suspicious of the Premier League leaders’ motive. Tuchel – while admitting that it looked off from the outside – was having none of that and stressed that it made a change from the days when some players would come to England camps without their boots simply because they knew they wouldn’t be staying long.
Atmosphere – he says – is everything to him and from that point of view Tuchel insists there has been no change. He will take his players to America as soon as possible after the Champions League final at the end of May in a bid to foster it further. Friends and families will be welcome to a ten-day Florida get-together, he said.
Tuchel will need some players in form also, mind. Games against Costa Rica and New Zealand in Florida will be exercises in acclimatisation as much as anything. So if any major steps are to be taken forward, Tuesday night would be a good place to start.
Tuchel’s England have played two teams in the world’s top twenty – Senegal and Uruguay – and have won neither.
‘That plays to my narrative that we don’t arrive as heavy favourites in America,’ he said.
‘But we will arrive as competitors for the cup and we have the right to believe and to dream and we want to make it possible.’
England (possible): Pickford; White, Konsa, Guehi, O’Reilly; Mainoo, Anderson; Palmer, Rogers, Gordon; Kane
