Fuming Tuchel rounds on 'frozen' England stars as Kane points finger of blame

Daily Mirror

a day ago

England crashed to a humiliating defeat to Senegal on Tuesday night, with Thomas Tuchel's reign threatening to unravel just four games in as his side were booed off
Thomas Tuchel said his players were 'frozen' as his England team were humiliated by Senegal in Nottingham. England were booed off by supporters inside the City Ground after Tuchel suffered his first defeat as Three Lions boss.
'Felt a bit frozen, not active enough for a long time over the match,' declared Tuchel. 'We go into a long break with a bad feeling. It's a disappointing result. I'm not sure if we did not deserve a little bit more result-wise.'
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Harry Kane had pounced for his 73rd international goal to give England an early lead but Ismaila Sarr equalised just before half-time. Habib Diarra fired Senegal ahead just after the hour mark.
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And home misery was complete when substitute Cheikh Sabaly added a third in added time. Tuchel added: 'We conceded two very cheap goals and then had big chances to equalise.
"We didn't … so the result is the result. It is tough learning at the moment because we hate to lose.'
Harry Kane said there were 'no excuses' for the defeat - England's first-ever at the hands of an African nation - but proceeded to blast Stephanie Frappart's decision to rule out a Jude Bellingham strike that would have made it 2-2 late in the game.
Frappart was sent to the screen by VAR and gave handball against Levi Colwill in the build-up to Bellingham's hit. Kane declared: 'If you know the rules it's not handball. That gets us back in the game and maybe we can go on and win the game, so it's a big moment.'
The England skipper did, though, suggest his side had not shown enough fight, saying: 'We had moments but, with and without the ball, things aren't clicking, we're not finding the right tempo. We've lost that aggressive nature that we had. Not good enough.
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'It's a mixture of things but no excuses. We need to find it quick, the World Cup is going to come around really fast so every camp is really important right now. We're not going to panic but we know we need to be better.'
And Tuchel, who defended his decision to only bring on Ivan Toney three minutes from the end of normal time, also said he would be staying calm, adding: 'We lost a test (friendly) match so there is no need to panic.
'We have three qualification games, we have nine points, and have not conceded. We will be competitive in September. We will go for two more victories, 100 per cent we will.
'We know more now, we are smarter. It's tough at the moment. I am the first one to dislike and hate losses like nothing else. But we don't go next week to the World Cup, we go in one year.'
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