Declan Rice and Thomas Tuchel may both come to regret Alex Scott’s England debut | OneFootball

“I think the clubs have to trust us,” says Thomas Tuchel as we near the end of an international break of great promise for England, in which the majority of those who have turned up for their country have strengthened their claims for further caps.

Chief among them has been Alex Scott, who impressed off the bench against Czechia on debut and put in a hugely impressive all-action display in the 7-0 thrashing of Croatia.

Thomas Tuchel hailed him as “the complete package” and Gary Lineker also showered praise on the Chelsea-linked 23-year-old, who he believes could put Declan Rice under pressure for a spot in the England XI.

“What an assured performance we saw from Alex Scott,” Lineker said on The Rest is Football podcast.

“I watched him quite closely and it’s obviously only one game against a team who didn’t play very well on the night, but he was a big part of the game.

“If you look at the great teams that win tournaments, they have control in games and I think Alex Scott is a player we haven’t necessarily seen within that England midfield.

“Declan Rice has his strengths and is brilliant with his delivery and work-rate, but there’s a calmness and control to Scott, he never gives the ball away and he’s always scanning.

“I was really impressed. What a very, very confident start to his England career.

“I wonder what Thomas Tuchel is going to do because Alex Scott has that kind of control and Declan Rice’s a totally different player.

“Does it give him a different option now and does it mean, perhaps, that Declan’s place is not always assured?

“Maybe he will want to play slightly differently with someone like Alex Scott. It might be a bit early to say that but it’s a conversation to be had.”

It was the sort of display from Scott that may in future lead Rice to push back against his club for suggesting he pulls out of an England squad to manage his workload.

Had Rice played through whatever niggles he’s working through – as he was doing and will continue to do for Arsenal – then Scott wouldn’t have had the opportunity to impress in his position.

The avoidable injury

But – and it’s a huge ‘but’ that goes a long way to justifying what we presume was a joint decision between Arsenal and Rice – Scott now faces eight weeks on the sidelines as a result of playing for England. Had that been Rice, it could be the difference between the Gunners winning and losing the Premier League title.

Scott is arguably a bigger loss to Bournemouth than Rice would have been for Arsenal, and the Cherries aren’t at all happy with the way England handled their midfielder, who felt the issue ahead of the win over Croatia, but played 70 minutes before being substituted.

“It’s a bit of strange one,” Tuchel said. “I’m very sad about it. Alex trained both training sessions before the match full against Croatia. He did extra work after the training sessions.

“We knew that he was in treatment, but there were only green lights from himself, from the medics.

“When we asked him, when we were aware that there is a slight discomfort throughout the match. We asked him if he wanted to come off, he said, ‘No’.

“After the match, he said like, ‘Yeah, OK, it was the right thing to do, but I could have played 90 minutes, I don’t feel an injury’.

“Even on the day after before we did the scan, he felt that he’s not injured, so it’s a strange one because it does not match the objectivity of the scan and the prediction of the time that he is obviously going to miss.

“It doesn’t match his feelings and doesn’t match at all the process into the match and during the match.

“There was zero risk-taking from our side. There was no awareness that there is any risk something could happen like this. It’s a kind of a one-off, strange one.”

It sounds like the sort of injury that players will regularly play through for their clubs and it’s unfortunate that it happened on international duty. But Tuchel hasn’t endeared himself or England to any club manager with those comments.

We imagine Bournemouth boss Marco Rose will have something to say on his player being allowed to play on through “discomfort” for his country, no matter how “slight”, particularly in a game England won so comprehensively.

Of course Scott didn’t want to come off on his full debut for the Three Lions. This was his chance and he grasped it with both hands, to such an extent that he may not regret playing through injury, just as Rice may now regret his period of rest.

But in an international break in which the drop-outs have made just as many headlines as those playing for England, the last thing Tuchel needed is an injury that sounds like it could – and Bournemouth will claim should – have been avoided.