Nobody is safe from Thomas Tuchel's sharp tongue with England

Telegraph

4 hours ago

Thomas Tuchel's reign as England manager will be defined by whether his hands are around the World Cup at MetLife Stadium, New Jersey, but his time in charge is fast-becoming the era of brutal honesty.
His team go into Tuesday's friendly against Senegal with three World Cup qualifying victories under Tuchel but, quite correctly, he has been far from happy with what he has seen. The German coach sounded concerned at what he saw during the embarrassing 1-0 win against Andorra.
It is clear there will be no hiding place in this regime. Tuchel read the riot act to players at a team meeting on Sunday, taking a dim view of their body language and questioning whether they took facing the 173rd team in the Fifa rankings seriously.
Tuchel is telling it how it is, even if it breaks the unwritten rule of management to stick up for players. Only a couple of years ago, Gareth Southgate was talking up Harry Kane's chances of playing until he is 40 like Cristiano Ronaldo, while Tuchel is more circumspect.
'Cristiano is always the exception to the rule,' said Tuchel. 'There are at the moment, no signs he [Kane] cannot do it at a high level. How long he can do it? I have not a crystal ball, let's see.'
Interestingly, Tuchel says he needs to give thought about how older players are impacted by heat, which will be a factor at the World Cup. Tuchel has overseen 11 training sessions so far with his team and his frankness reflects the clock ticking towards next year's tournament. There is no time to start thinking about tournaments in the years after, or sugar-coating the current situation.
He is seeing a team who are not playing with enjoyment. An initial assessment of Southgate's team at last year's Euros was they lacked 'identity', 'hunger' and failed to express themselves. The last exciting run of wins to get fans dreaming of a tournament triumph dates back to the World Cup in Qatar.
'We can be more fluid. We can be more exciting which for a long time I feel has been a bit of a problem,' said Tuchel. 'I feel a bit stuck, I feel like a serious [team]. I see us train with a smile but not play with a smile.
'What does it mean, the 'heavy shirt'? Do we expect too much? Don't we feel the freedom? Does Phil [Foden] feel free in his club, is he really free in his club to express himself? Not since many months. He struggles there. So maybe it's also a normal thing that it's a bit of up and down.'
Southgate would consistently back his players throughout his time as manager, in every circumstance. Kane's position was questioned at the Euros by pundits but never his manager. Harry Maguire would get jeered by his own supporters and know public support was coming his way from his manager.
Those players had a history with Southgate and were rewarded with his loyalty, while Tuchel is telling it how he sees it with fresh eyes. Why can't his players replicate their club form? Well, in the case of Cole Palmer, he points out that his form has not been great at Chelsea. Foden's poor form at Manchester City has dated back even further.
'That's the question that needs to be answered,' said Tuchel, when asked about players bringing their club form to England. 'It is a fair question. At the moment, I think that even Cole struggled lately at Chelsea to have an impact.
'Phil, unfortunately, struggled over many months now to have the impact that he can have. So, the question would always be, do we then invite them and create an atmosphere that he can still perform here? At the moment, we rely heavily on what we see in the clubs.'
Tuchel is willing to try new players against Senegal and may give Dean Henderson minutes in goal, although he cannot afford a morale-sapping defeat at the City Ground either. Despite the criticism at the weekend, he says encouragement is also crucial to how his team develops over the next year ahead of the tournament in America, Canada and Mexico.
He expects players to raise their game significantly when they play against high-level opposition, rather than low-ranked teams with six defenders stretched across their back line. In that respect, he insists there should be no inferiority complex when watching the thrilling attacking football in the Nations League finale this week.
'The level will increase immediately once we are in Munich at the stadium and playing against Portugal or Spain,' he said. 'We will rise to the occasion because of the occasion, because it is very difficult. This will come. It will bring out the very best in us.
'We shall not develop a complex because there is no need for it. Spain qualified for the final four with a very lucky win over the Netherlands. Everyone is beatable. We have what it takes to compete. We need to improve, for sure. We need to improve in connections, in support, in interactions in the group. I feel we are too isolated on the pitch. But we have not clicked yet.'
Tuchel will be hoping it starts to click in Nottingham.
Thomas Tuchel has claimed that the Club World Cup has already given Liverpool and Arsenal 'a huge advantage' in next season's Premier League title race.
Chelsea, Tuchel's former club, and Manchester City will start their Club World Cup campaigns in the United States next week, with the final taking place on July 13 – just over a month before the new Premier League season starts.
And Tuchel, who lifted the Club World Cup as Chelsea manager in its old format in 2022, believes that the demands of playing through the summer and having a short pre-season will take its toll on the title rivals of champions Liverpool and Arsenal.
'I think it [the Club World Cup] will have a huge impact and it will give Liverpool and Arsenal a huge advantage in the next season to not be there,' said Tuchel.
Chelsea have five players in Tuchel's squad and three of those – Cole Palmer, Reece James and Noni Madueke – started against Andorra last Saturday. City's sole England representative, Kyle Walker, will not go to the Club World Cup.
Telegraph Sport reported last week that Chelsea are braced for the possibility that their squad may only have two weeks to prepare for the new Premier League season after returning from the Club World Cup. Chelsea plan to give their players a break of roughly three weeks at the point of exiting the tournament, which leaves a very small window to squeeze in a hybrid pre-season before the new season starts on August 15.
Tuchel suggested that captain Harry Kane, who will go to the Club World Cup with Bayern Munich, will start for a second successive England game against Senegal on Tuesday night at the City Ground. Kane is one of nine players in Tuchel's current England squad who will go to this summer's Club World Cup and the head coach is unsure whether it will impact his preparations for next summer's World Cup.
'I think it will be a very nice experience for the players who are there to play this tournament for the first time, so it is mixed feelings about it,' said Tuchel. 'I decided not to worry too much because why should I? It is a given and no one knows what will be the outcome of it or the effect.
'We will deal with the effect when the effect comes and let's see. We have a lot of teams in the Champions League next season and European football, and let's see.'
His 72nd goal for the Three Lions 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿
Harry Kane 👏 @England 🎥 pic.twitter.com/L7klh7IVhT
— ITV Football (@itvfootball) June 9, 2025
Tuchel insisted that none of his Club World Cup players have expressed a desire to miss the Andorra or Senegal games, despite some admitting they felt tired.
He said: 'I have to tell you that I think every player, if you go there now and ask the players individually, I think you get 25 players who say 'I want to start' [against Senegal]. I think the clubs are concerned and I get that for the Club World Cup after a long season. I think some of the players feel tired and some of them feel the tiredness more after one or two weeks of holiday than they felt straight after the season. So sometimes it is easier to say in a rhythm.
'Harry [Kane] said he felt that two weeks [holiday] helped him more than one week. He said coming after one week would have been much harder for him than coming after two weeks, gave him almost a freshness. He said 'I enjoyed so much to be back and put my boots back on' while there were many players who came back after one week and I had the response and feeling that they said 'we were just getting into holiday mode and now we put the boots back on'. But they all want to play.
'There is not one player who says 'by the way, I would like to be on the bench and save myself for the Club World Cup' so they are hungry to play. The games are not the problem, it is just the amount of time that it occupies from the players and they need a proper rest somewhere in this calendar, which they hardly get.'
Tuchel suggested that Kane will start against Senegal when asked who will captain the team on Tuesday night. He replied: 'It's very likely that it is the same captain.'
Kane will be 32 at next summer's World Cup and Tuchel also hinted that he may not be able to start every game in the United States, where temperatures are expected to be at least 28 degrees.
'There is no concern about Harry,' he said. 'There is no concern, but we need to give it thought – like how much age influences how you react to the heat.'
Bukayo Saka will hope that Tuchel's assessment that Arsenal will be one of the clubs that can take advantage of the Club World Cup is right. The winger admitted it had been hard to see London rivals Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea finish the season with trophies after his team had missed out.