Thomas Tuchel (England manager)

[Ghost]

If I am right Argentina (the world ranked no.1) put on more attacking players, it could be logical to counter that with trying to shore up the back more. It didnt really work, but he would also have been slated for not shoribg up the back if tge result ended the same. Ifs buts and maybes win the day. It was a good match, least we had a semi!

I honestly don't think he would have been. I think if we'd done something different (make changes that enabled us to try and win the game as opposed to not lose it) I genuinely think nobody would have a problem if Argentina still won. Taking Gordon off was absolutely criminal.

 

[Jezybee]

Not playing Watkins for a single minute considering how he ended the season was also odd.

Apparently he played 6mins vs Panama but, yes, you're point stands. England's position seemed like it would favour players who could "stretch the pitch".

 

[BFC1997]

We can all over-analyse and say where *we* think it went wrong but doesn't matter.
Pretty unlucky last night but not quite good enough. Reaching a World Cup final is hard, lets not forget.

Thing is with Tuchel is that there is no journey we are on or long-term plan as there was in 2018 with Southgate.
The aim with Tuchel was to win this world cup. We couldn't. Fine, but I don't see how he can stay on.

Perhaps you could argue he gets "a shot" at one WC and one Euros, for me I'd get rid.

 

[Ghost]

We can all over-analyse and say where *we* think it went wrong but doesn't matter.

It kind of does if we keep repeating the same mistakes, which we have and are.

 

[IslandBee]

Ok so who would you like yo replace TT.

It's a separate question ie you do not keep someone because you are not sure there is an obvious replacement out there.

If the job became available, I have no doubt there would be a good number of high quality applicants

 

[Bee(h)Iver]

I think it's safe to say that with hingsight TT wouldn't have made the changes he did. giving up any chance of posession against the best player the world has ever seen only ends one way.

But can we also say that the defending was woeful. For the equaliser we had 7 players on the 6 yard line - only 1 (Bellingham) tried to close down the shot and when Fernandez received the ball on the edge of the box no one was within 10 yards of him. The second came when Spence pulled up, no one covered him and then Martinez had a free header with CBs all within a couple of yards.

I don't see any benefit in sacking TT tight now. He made a mistake and it'll live with him in his memory until he gets a chance to turn it around. That may be at the Euros but I look around and don't see anyone who could do a better job.

 

[Ghost]

It's a separate question ie you do not keep someone because you are not sure there is an obvious replacement out there.

If the job became available, I have no doubt there would be a good number of high quality applicants

I could see it being very attractive as an ego project... "I can end the X years of hurt".

 

[IslandBee]

So easy to criticise, I notice the likes of Big Sam giving it what he would have done, safe in the knowledge that with him in charge we would never have got out the group stages or maybe not even qualified.

If I am right Argentina (the world ranked no.1) put on more attacking players, it could be logical to counter that with trying to shore up the back more. It didnt really work, but he would also have been slated for not shoribg up the back if tge result ended the same. Ifs buts and maybes win the day. It was a good match, least we had a semi!

Only one of their subs could be seen as replacing a defensive player with a more attacking option (Gonzalez/Paredes on 64th). All the others were like for like.

In any case there are other ways to defend than putting on defenders - there were six on the pitch from the 82th to 96th minute, meaning wave after wave of attack. Defending would have been easier if we had retained an attacking outlet.

 

[Jay Bee]

Too many wrong decisions IMO

1/ Wasting too much of the preparation time trying out players rather than developing strong team relationships, particularly in important positions (ie right back/ right winger etc). We lacked cohesion throughout the tournament and the reason is pretty obvious
2/ Too many wrong choices in the squad: Why was Mainoo even there? Why was Wharton ignored? How useful would the dynamism and pace of Gibbs-White have been second half last night and in other games? You don't waste a squad place on a player picked to take penalties or to throw on in desperation in injury time!
3/ Persisting too long with players who were clearly not fit - Saka, Rice, James etc. This obviously relates to squad choice
4/ And then there is last night!! The Konsa/Gordon sub was a disaster: we lost our paciest player, massively reducing our threat on the break, and the players' natural tendency in such situations to drop deep was strongly reinforced. We then went to six defenders, one midfielder (a defensive one) and three (very tired) attackers!! Argentina faced no threat at all and it was completely obvious they would score at least an equaliser!

It is easy to blame players but, as was clear in the Mexico game particularly, I think they gave just about everything they were able to give.

Overall, they have been ill-served by their coach and his team, and I would get rid.

I think the squad was fine, and plenty of the choices were vindicated - Gordon and Rogers combined for the goal last night, I'm sure many would have had neither of them anywhere near the team a month or two ago and some wouldn't have taken them at all. Spence also a good pick. We seem to have thankfully moved on from bringing all the most famous players so we didn't take three more backup number 10s that we weren't going to use for example.

The reluctance to bring on Mainoo or Toney was odd - was Mainoo not fit? If he knows Toney's game he might have thought he would be useful at both ends towards the end last night, not in the 95th minute. I don't know what the story was with Wharton.

I think your points 1 and 3 contradict one another - you have to try the options to see who works with your system, if you focus on "team relationships" alone you are only building an XI or a small squad for that group of players and you then have no idea who works when there is an injury at a crucial stage. The England cricket team in the past have talked about 2 years of a tournament cycle trialling lots of options and then 2 more years turning the best of those into a functioning team.

Saka and Rice are amongst our best players and it's logical you try and use them as best you can in a short tournament. - I think any manager would do the same.
Rice had an injury and then was sick I think? Saka has struggled but I think the impact sub role was fine for that situation, it would have been worse to just throw him in from the start and cross your fingers.

 

[Jay Bee]

I could see it being very attractive as an ego project... "I can end the X years of hurt".

Or "You can be villified and binned off after one tournament like all the others"

 

[LongLostBee]

Rice was awful. Probably only had one good game at the tournament (Croatia).
I'd keep Tuchel but imo we persisted with playing Rice far too often and he bought into the Rice hype.
He's a really good player when 100% fit (and feels athletically comfortable to come forward and/or play) but, when he's not, he's nowhere near better than the other options we have on the bench.
Similarly, I like Reece James when he's 100% fit, but he was miles off it yesterday and just looked like a player trying to get through it, rather than raring to go.

 

[IslandBee]

I think your points 1 and 3 contradict one another - you have to try the options to see who works with your system, if you focus on "team relationships" alone you are only building an XI or a small squad for that group of players and you then have no idea who works when there is an injury at a crucial stage.

He should have known his first and second choice 11s much earlier than he did and then focused all energies on developing playing relationships between these players. Injuries and form issues are always bound to occur but will have less impact if this preparation is done.

The 35 player squad in March was a total nonsense and distraction! Look at the starting sides for the games against Japan and Uruguay and compare with the teams that played in the USA. He was fiddling around and being indecisive at the time when he should have been working on team patterns and cohesion.

 

[Ghost]

Or "You can be villified and binned off after one tournament like all the others"

TF backed himself to succeed at Spurs, where it was blindingly obvious to all what would happen. Add oodles of cash in the equation and there will always be takers.

 

[Jay Bee]

He should have known his first and second choice 11s much earlier than he did and then focused all energies on developing playing relationships between these players. Injuries and form issues are always bound to occur but will have less impact if this preparation is done.

The 35 player squad in March was a total nonsense and distraction! Look at the starting sides for the games against Japan and Uruguay and compare with the teams that played in the USA. He was fiddling around and being indecisive at the time when he should have been working on team patterns and cohesion.

Well he only had a year and a few weeks between his first and last squads before the World Cup squad was named, it's not a lot of development time.
I'm inclined the agree the 35 man mega squad wasn't really needed or productive but i suspect it also had little bad influence on what happened this month, the A team would have been pretty much decided already.

 

[Les Beeavinu]

Only one of their subs could be seen as replacing a defensive player with a more attacking option (Gonzalez/Paredes on 64th). All the others were like for like.

In any case there are other ways to defend than putting on defenders - there were six on the pitch from the 82th to 96th minute, meaning wave after wave of attack. Defending would have been easier if we had retained an attacking outlet.

Plus Kane ending up as a deep lying midfielder.

 

[LongLostBee]

Plus Kane ending up as a deep lying midfielder.

I really really hate that. I don't know why he's not told firmly to stop it.
It doesn't matter if he can ping a great forward pass - there's plenty of others who can do that.
It just ensures we have nobody to get on the end of it if the winger receives the ball!

 

[Jay Bee]

TF backed himself to succeed at Spurs, where it was blindingly obvious to all what would happen. Add oodles of cash in the equation and there will always be takers.

Maybe but Spurs was reputationally a big step up from Brentford and his first offer for a job of that size after a few knock backs, it was potentially "now or never" for him to manage a club of that size.

The finest managers in Europe - who are presumably who people want us to see in contention - don't have to take the England job to push their career on there are always top clubs with vacancies offering the chance for short-term success. And that's before you consider what a poisoned chalice it has been for other so-called elite managers - has anyone since Venables remotely improved their reputation and CV by managing England? (I'd argue Southgate did but others would disagree as that would involved giving him a bit of credit...he's surely the only one)

The idea of Pep agreeing to take the job is crackers. He's built a reputation for almost constant success over nearly 20 years, he'd be utterly mad to take this on.

Anyway when the time comes we'll see, but I suspect that is some way away.

 

[Kingston Bee]

It's a separate question ie you do not keep someone because you are not sure there is an obvious replacement out there.

If the job became available, I have no doubt there would be a good number of high quality applicants

It was an honest question. Many posters on here want TT gone which is fine, just an obvious question really as to a replacement. I am not certain there would be a good number of high quality applicants applying. Lets be honest its a poisoned chalice.

 

[GuyBee]

Was there any match where we played the same defence from the last match?

We lost it in midfield. Why Bring Mainoo if you arent going to play him.......if we had to bring Rice off, drop Rodgers into midfield and put Saka/Rashford on. Think Hendo would have got on if he wasnt crocked.

 

[IslandBee]

It was an honest question. Many posters on here want TT gone which is fine, just an obvious question really as to a replacement. I am not certain there would be a good number of high quality applicants applying. Lets be honest its a poison chalice.

Fair enough.

All jobs in football are poison chalices pretty much; it doesn't stop there being lots of takers

 

[IslandBee]

Well he only had a year and a few weeks between his first and last squads before the World Cup squad was named, it's not a lot of development time.
I'm inclined the agree the 35 man mega squad wasn't really needed or productive but i suspect it also had little bad influence on what happened this month, the A team would have been pretty much decided already.

But it would have been an A team (and most likely subs) that had played together more in advance of the tournament. He seems to have expected his first 11 to gel in situ.

One of too many errors in my view but we can agree to differ

 

[Vid]

I'm putting my name forward. At 72 minutes I said to the missus "This is going t1ts up ". We took Gordon off for Konsa and they brought on Montiel, De Paul and Otamendi. That is when we lost the game.

 

[The Pipe]

You can argue about game management last night till the cows come home, however looking at the tournament overall Tuchel has many questions to answer, firstly the squad he selected including players carrying injuries who were unable to fully contribute, selecting a CB when our RB was injured, having players out there who never got on the pitch. Can understand Palmer etc not being selected but not leaving out GibbsWhite who was probably the most inform player we have.

In essence we managed just 1 decent half of football from a pretty talented group of players but overall our performances have been just about adequate, and the manager should be explaining to the FA why he couldn’t get a decent tune out of the squad.

I fully accept that conditions were tough with the heat and intensity of the games however last night Rice, James and Kane looked below par and probably shouldn’t have started.

It’s a tough gig but if paid the mega bucks then it needs to be earned and, in my humble opinion, he has failed

 

[Hippobee]

We can all over-analyse and say where *we* think it went wrong but doesn't matter.
Pretty unlucky last night but not quite good enough. Reaching a World Cup final is hard, lets not forget.

Thing is with Tuchel is that there is no journey we are on or long-term plan as there was in 2018 with Southgate.
The aim with Tuchel was to win this world cup. We couldn't. Fine, but I don't see how he can stay on.

Perhaps you could argue he gets "a shot" at one WC and one Euros, for me I'd get rid.

Let's be clear - there was absolutely nothing 'unlucky' about last night's defeat.

Argentina could quite easily have had 4 or 5 goals in that last 20-30 minutes. We were not good enough, but then neither were they for the first hour either.

The difference is one coach tried to do something positive to improve their position and the other did something extremely negative. For all the money and reputation of a supposedly top coach, it ended up with 'let's shore up at the back and put the beanpole on to head the danger out.'

 

[letsgotolourdes]

For me the game was up when the squad was announced, no matter how hard I tried to envisage the headline, “Dan Burn World Cup winner!”. - Nothing.

 

[Bee(h)Iver]

For me the game was up when the squad was announced, no matter how hard I tried to envisage the headline, “Dan Burn World Cup winner!”. - Nothing.

The problem wasn't naming Dan Burn in the sqaud. The problem was needing to use him!

 

[Hullbee]

Plus Kane ending up as a deep lying midfielder.

Yep he as captain should have dragged them forward and remained up top

 

[True Bee]

You can argue about game management last night till the cows come home, however looking at the tournament overall Tuchel has many questions to answer, firstly the squad he selected including players carrying injuries who were unable to fully contribute, selecting a CB when our RB was injured, having players out there who never got on the pitch. Can understand Palmer etc not being selected but not leaving out GibbsWhite who was probably the most inform player we have.

In essence we managed just 1 decent half of football from a pretty talented group of players but overall our performances have been just about adequate, and the manager should be explaining to the FA why he couldn’t get a decent tune out of the squad.

I fully accept that conditions were tough with the heat and intensity of the games however last night Rice, James and Kane looked below par and probably shouldn’t have started.

It’s a tough gig but if paid the mega bucks then it needs to be earned and, in my humble opinion, he has failed

I couldn't agree more, as soon as the squad was announced my biggest concern was where the creativity was coming from, you can't expect Bellingham to do it all, if you look at the way Odegard and Messi played as number tens pulling all the strings we had nobody anywhere near that influential. For all the criticism of Southgate this was not a step up at all but a tournament based on boring ineffective football. Maybe one day we'll select a manager who can extract every ounce of skill and pick players based on fitness and form, It's not like a club manager who has a squad of 26 he has every single English player at his disposal and still manages to only use half of them, overall tournament score 4/10

 

[Twickenhamben]

We can all over-analyse and say where *we* think it went wrong but doesn't matter.
Pretty unlucky last night but not quite good enough. Reaching a World Cup final is hard, lets not forget.

Thing is with Tuchel is that there is no journey we are on or long-term plan as there was in 2018 with Southgate.
The aim with Tuchel was to win this world cup. We couldn't. Fine, but I don't see how he can stay on.

Perhaps you could argue he gets "a shot" at one WC and one Euros, for me I'd get rid.

How were we pretty unlucky last night?

 

[Gazza Bee]

I'd keep him until the Euros - no point chopping and changing manager every time we dont make a final, we did exactly what we should have done based on seeding so it wasn't a failure per se even if last night was extremely frustrating tactically.

 

[Beelieve!]

Give him a chance to learn from this

 

[LongLostBee]

The problem wasn't naming Dan Burn in the sqaud. The problem was needing to use him!

I actually think a lot of what Tuchel did really worked out. Dan Burn against Mexico was perfect.

Took Henderson for when our bottle jobs bottle it against a good team and sit too deep….sadly the plonker injured himself so he couldn’t come on and shout at people to get them pushing up again.

Spence was arguably one of our players of the tournament.

Bellingham some wanted dropped and showed why those people are idiots.

I’m not saying Tuchel got everything right but I think the positives far outweighed the negatives and we’ve watched a lot lot worse from these players in the past.

I think Tuchel, with knowing what he knows now, has a FAR better chance of improving this team than ANY other manager we could realistically get.

 

[BFC1997]

How were we pretty unlucky last night?

Had 2-3 replies like this and I get everyone's angry but

We were winning 1-0 with 5 minutes to go. To not even make extra time from there is a bit unlucky, even with a few negative subs, I'd say 9 times out of 10 we probably see out at least a draw in normal time.

I did also say we were not quite good enough as well, but then neither were many other elite footballing nations. We made it further than most.

 

[big neil]

Reasons we lost that struck me.

Lack of nous.

Massively overrated goalkeeper that puts the heebie-jeebies up the defenders with his nervousness.

Negative substitutions.

Not having Messi in our team.

 

[Guildford Bee]

He arrived with a big salary and all the talk about how we had to stop being afraid and would become winners but when push came to shove he bottled it big time.

I don’t see how he can stay, the knives will be out now. There are two Wembley games coming up during the first international break and while it’s only the Nations League if the performances are even slightly below average it will turn toxic pretty quickly.

 

[nick logan]

Semis was a good effort , still upset but we continue to knock hard on the door . Every chance at the Euros next time

 

[AlwaysBees]

That's beyond stupid, he's been breaking scoring records for years now. Best forward in the history of Team England, probably.

Kanes record is exemplary, but beyond being stupid,if Watkins or Toney had they performed as poorly as Kane did in the last two matches they would face criticism and be dropped,thought Toney actually did ok in the few minutes he finally managed to get, shame he didn’t get 20 minutes or more. With the age of our forwards, not sure where the new young talent is coming from

 

[AlwaysBees]

I’m just really glad Andrews decided to stick with 4 at the back last season,after the Leeds game, he learned his lesson, obviously Tuchel didn’t learn after the Norway game, luckily we got through, unfortunately our luck ran out last night

 

[ziggys_human]

defenders of this fraud of a coach are failure sympathisers...end of

 

[Banana]

defenders of this fraud of a coach are failure sympathisers...end of

I agree.

It's incredible that England managed to lose when 1-0 with 2 mins to go having brought on 6 defenders and not addressed the freedom Argentina had to cross from the wings.

It's a par with that craven cottage game that Thomas got a massive b***ocking for. For exactly the same reasons.

Tuchel obviously had what he did work in the past for him many times without anyone telling him that it's a long-term losing strategy. (So I have been told....) Doesn't help that his team was inevitably the better team by a margin too.

 

[Jezybee]

The daggers seem to be out for Herr Tuchel. The plan appeared to be: go to a back 5 so the wingbacks could engage the Argentinian wingers while there still being 3 defenders in the middle. No further adjustments nor plans mentioned once stopping the crosses plainly wasn’t working?

"We got too passive within our structure. I tried to help, not to become more passive with a back five but to be more active, to be quicker out to the wingers, not to open up the gaps between the back four.

We encouraged everyone to step out, to be more active within the structure, but we just struggled.

We couldn't find any duels any more which was why we dropped deeper and deeper, which was never the plan but it happened.”

World Cup 2026: England squad debating Tuchel's tactics against Argentina

BBC Sport understands that Thomas Tuchel's defensive tactics in the World Cup semi-final defeat to Argentina are being hotly debated by the England squad.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[I'll Bee Damned]

Had 2-3 replies like this and I get everyone's angry but

We were winning 1-0 with 5 minutes to go. To not even make extra time from there is a bit unlucky, even with a few negative subs, I'd say 9 times out of 10 we probably see out at least a draw in normal time.

I did also say we were not quite good enough as well, but then neither were many other elite footballing nations. We made it further than most.

The problem with this was what was he going to do in extra time? Would he replace some of the defenders with forwards or would it have been 30 minutes of backs against the wall? What was his plan? We’ll probably never know

 

[LongLostBee]

View: https://x.com/UtdArena/status/2077710699875168311/video/1?s=46


This shows it perfectly.

If you think Tuchel instructed that you’re a clown imo.

It’s a mentality problem from the players and we’ve seen it all before. They should be apologising for bottling it. Blaming the manager is madness.

 

[I'll Bee Damned]

View: https://x.com/UtdArena/status/2077710699875168311/video/1?s=46


This shows it perfectly.

If you think Tuchel instructed that you’re a clown imo.

It’s a mentality problem from the players and we’ve seen it all before. They should be apologising for bottling it. Blaming the manager is madness.

The players undoubtably dropped too deep without being instructed to do so but TT instilled the mindset by throwing defenders on. That doesn’t say to the players “let’s wrest back the initiate and take the attack to them” it says “defend what we have at all costs”.

 

[Twickenhamben]

Had 2-3 replies like this and I get everyone's angry but

We were winning 1-0 with 5 minutes to go. To not even make extra time from there is a bit unlucky, even with a few negative subs, I'd say 9 times out of 10 we probably see out at least a draw in normal time.

I did also say we were not quite good enough as well, but then neither were many other elite footballing nations. We made it further than most.

I’d argue the opposite- Argentina unlucky not to win the fane by more. They hit the list twice and had much the better chances.

 

[LongLostBee]

The players undoubtably dropped too deep without being instructed to do so but TT instilled the mindset by throwing defenders on. That doesn’t say to the players “let’s wrest back the initiate and take the attack to them” it says “defend what we have at all costs”.

I think the argument would be that happened after the horse has bolted.
It could be a massacre if he chucks on attackers and they then also just sit deep.
I think the Tuchel conclusion was that if their heads have gone, won't attack / push up, then the best we can do is hope to ride out the storm, even if that's not what he wanted to do (especially having seen them pull together against Mexico - even if knowing Argentina is a tougher ask).

 

[hanworthbee]

The problem with this was what was he going to do in extra time? Would he replace some of the defenders with forwards or would it have been 30 minutes of backs against the wall? What was his plan? We’ll probably never know

We'd made all our subs hadn't we after Toney and rashford came on

 

[Beelieve!]

I agree.

It's incredible that England managed to lose when 1-0 with 2 mins to go having brought on 6 defenders and not addressed the freedom Argentina had to cross from the wings.

It's a par with that craven cottage game that Thomas got a massive b***ocking for. For exactly the same reasons.

Tuchel obviously had what he did work in the past for him many times without anyone telling him that it's a long-term losing strategy. (So I have been told....) Doesn't help that his team was inevitably the better team by a margin too.

Massive b***ocking? Really?

I can’t imagine anyone in the FA doing that to Tuchel

 

[Mr Tree]

We'd made all our subs hadn't we after Toney and rashford came on

But he's specifically replying to a scenario where we see out the 1-1 and get to extra time. How we would have amended the 6-2-2 formation we'd sunk into at that point? O'Reilly is the only defender who might have stepped into midfield.

Anyway i think you get another sub for extra time, no?

 

[HaylingBee74]

Too many wrong decisions IMO

1/ Wasting too much of the preparation time trying out players rather than developing strong team relationships, particularly in important positions (ie right back/ right winger etc). We lacked cohesion throughout the tournament and the reason is pretty obvious
2/ Too many wrong choices in the squad: Why was Mainoo even there? Why was Wharton ignored? How useful would the dynamism and pace of Gibbs-White have been second half last night and in other games? You don't waste a squad place on a player picked to take penalties or to throw on in desperation in injury time!
3/ Persisting too long with players who were clearly not fit - Saka, Rice, James etc. This obviously relates to squad choice
4/ And then there is last night!! The Konsa/Gordon sub was a disaster: we lost our paciest player, massively reducing our threat on the break, and the players' natural tendency in such situations to drop deep was strongly reinforced. We then went to six defenders, one midfielder (a defensive one) and three (very tired) attackers!! Argentina faced no threat at all and it was completely obvious they would score at least an equaliser!

It is easy to blame players but, as was clear in the Mexico game particularly, I think they gave just about everything they were able to give.

Overall, they have been ill-served by their coach and his team, and I would get rid.

I agree with it all except the Conclusion.
I would keep Tuchel so we dont have to go through the learning curve of new manager’s first tournament.
TT got a lot of deciisions correct up until Konsa for Gordon despite making errors on squad selection, which when selected isnt obvious who shoukd go. There were as many if not more saying what has Djed Spence ever done to deserve going