A journey home from Barcelona was accompanied by a nagging question. When was the last time the England team played consistently well?
That may seem a strange thought to have about a side ranked fourth in the world, a team that has lost narrowly in the finals of the last two European Championships.
Nevertheless, it’s pertinent.
Three games under the national team’s new head coach Thomas Tuchel have seen Latvia, Albania and now Andorra beaten. In terms of pattern and style and conviction, there have been as many questions left as answers.
Tuchel deserves patience and will hopefully get some. But the wider worry is that England have been trending backwards – or at the very most flatlining – for quite a while now. We know what happened at last summer’s Euros. On performances alone, England would have been home within a fortnight. They were lucky.
The following experiment – if that’s what it was – with Lee Carsley offered some hope and some early freshness. There was a bold opening 25 minutes against the Republic in Ireland. But over time, it all grew more difficult. England lost at home to Greece and were no more than satisfactory in Nations League tier two from that point on.
England boss Thomas Tuchel was unimpressed by his team in Saturday’s 1-0 win over Andorra
Many expected a flood of goals but only witnessed one — scored by England No 9 Harry Kane
Carsley’s final game before handing over to Tuchel ended with a 5-0 defeat of the Republic but those of us who were at Wembley know what we saw, namely an England team struggling lamely until a sending off offered them a penalty, the lead and a one-man advantage early in the second half.
So back we go, perhaps, to 2023 and home and away wins over Italy in Euro 2024 qualifying. Maybe that’s the last time we saw the light, the last time we saw an England team play with the purpose and devilment that we expect. Before that was a productive World Cup in Qatar – England could well have beaten France in that quarter-final – and the conclusion we reach from all of this reflection and analysis is that it’s all been far too long.
For the truth of the matter is that this is an England team in grave danger of getting stuck in treading water mode, a group of players struggling to impose their undoubted qualities on modest opposition just a year out from a World Cup in America that continues to feel ever more daunting the closer it gets.
England’s efforts against Andorra in Spain on Saturday were lame, for sure. Has there even been a more dispiriting watch?
Perhaps there has but Andorra are ranked 173rd in the world – just ahead of Nepal – and as such what Tuchel’s players gave him in the sparse surroundings of the largely empty …… Stadium was wholly unacceptable. Stronger words are available without risk of contradiction.
Tuchel was asked afterwards if he had taken a risk in being so critical of his players in his post-match analysis. It was a fair point – such candour is becoming a theme of the Tuchel tenure after just three games – but his reply equally hard to counter.
‘What else do you expect me to say?’ he asked rhetorically.
More broadly, it is clear that Tuchel is already developing very real expectations of how he expects this England team to play. He has clearly worked it out already.
Tuchel pictured speaking to the media in Barcelona following Saturday’s forgettable victory
Tuchel has just 12 months to get his team ready for the 2026 FIFA World Cup in North America
Playing 4-4-2 next summer is already in his head while he has mused about the importance of set pieces and throw-ins. Very quickly the outlook is becoming pragmatic rather than ambitious as the former Chelsea manager walks headlong into the same problems that plagued his predecessor Gareth Southgate.
No natural number 6, reservations about Trent Alexander-Arnold’s defending, no senior left-back and no real alternative to Harry Kane as the England captain and centre forward continues to slow down.
Add to that the fact that a central defensive pairing that served England well for some time has fallen apart on the back of waning form and fitness and Tuchel’s problems are clear. The manager has hopes of a return to prominence for John Stones – he hasn’t ruled out the Manchester City man playing in midfield – but is less optimistic about Harry Maguire. We shall see.
Certainly, England’s relegation from the top tier of the Nations League has hurt Tuchel’s team more than we perhaps thought when Southgate’s version endured that miserable campaign against Italy, Hungary and Germany in the run up to the Qatar World Cup in 2022.
Spain and Portugal were due to tussle for the Nations League title in Munich last night but that’s not the issue. No, it’s the fact that England have been deprived of the chance to play top opposition over the course of the last season that matters.
While Carsley’s England were banging their heads against the low blocks of unambitious opponents in Dublin, Helsinki and Athens last autumn and winter, the rest of European football’s elite nations were facing each other in games of real substance.
How damaging this will be for England in the long run remains to be seen but the danger is clear.
With the greatest of respect to World Cup qualifying opponents Serbia – ranked at 31 in the world – England will reach America next summer having not played a seriously top level opponent in competitive play since losing to Spain in last year’s Euros final.
England’s players applauded fans after full-time on Saturday — some of whom had booed
Noni Madueke was one of the few England players to come out of Saturday with any credit
It will have been 23 months, then, since England were able to engage in a proper toe to toe football match.
This is Tuchel’s problem to solve and it’s significant. The 51-year-old needs to bring this group of players to the boil next summer while at the moment he is struggling even to get them to simmer. It really is difficult to do that at the end of a long and tiring domestic season against opponents who start every game seeking merely to limit damage.
Senegal at the City Ground on Tuesday should be more engaging than what we sat through on Saturday, even though it’s a friendly fixture. The City Ground has not hosted an international since the 1996 European Championship and so the stadium will be full and the crowd hungry. The very least they should expect is a team that mirrors that.
To hear Tuchel question attitude late on Saturday night was as alarming as had been his team’s football. This England team has a few high rollers in but that doesn’t mean these players have nothing to prove because they do. They are still to win anything.
Selection for the game will be interesting. Giving Ivan Toney a run up front felt like a no-brainer until Tuchel refused to talk about him on Saturday. Three times the manager was asked to discuss the Saudi-based forward and three times he refused, choosing instead to extol the virtues of Kane as one of the few to have passed muster against Andorra.
This may mean something and it may not. If Toney doesn’t start on Tuesday, however, then we will have our answer.
Tuchel likes to talk straight and as such some early frustrations are clear. He certainly should have started the job earlier. He and the FA have never really explained the delay. But that chance has gone now and the fact is that somebody must light a fire beneath this England team before it’s too late. As ever in football, the spark is going to have to come from within the dressing room.
